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Antisemitism, in the form of anti-Zionism on the progressive left, is not an issue exclusive to college campuses. It is a common feature of progressive spaces: Pro-Israel students, activists, and staff at progressive organizations are forced to make a false choice between their Zionism and their progressivism in order to be included in movements meant to create a better world. I’ve seen and experienced this dynamic play out firsthand in over a decade of work in various progressive organizations. In today’s American progressive movement, Zionism, a progressive victory of self-determination for the Jewish people, has come to represent the antithesis of progressive values.

Why are we so afraid to delve into the problem of antisemitism on the political left? Of the exclusion of Jewish students on campus when they identify as proud Zionists, the rejection of Jewish participation in a marches meant to celebrate diversity and acceptance, the unwillingness to address the progressive movement’s most pressing issues side by side with Jewish organizations, the complete erasure of the Jewish connection to their indigenous homeland in Israel, and the idea that denying the legitimacy of the Jewish state is anything short of clear and blatant antisemitism? Why can’t we talk about it — all of it?

Is it because antisemitism on the political right is an existential threat to the Jewish people? There’s no argument that antisemitism on the right deserves our urgent attention. Jonathan Greenblatt of the ADL compared it, in a 2021 Washington Post op-ed and again in the CNN special report, to the tornado that unceremoniously torches your community. But the antisemitism on the left — the kind Greenblatt compared to the slowly emerging threat of climate change — influences how society understands and engages with our community. We need not create a hierarchy of threats — we must name each one plainly, and address each in turn.

The causes of the progressive movement — protecting and expanding reproductive rights, addressing the existential threat of climate change and so many others — are so urgent and critical. Do we feel that diverting our attention from them for even a moment to take a step back and question our approach is irresponsible? I would argue that addressing this insidious element of the progressive movement is also urgent. A progressive movement can never have its intended impact on the world while it fails to live up to its own values, values represented by celebrating Jewish liberation and self-determination in our homeland.

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Everything you need to know about Hanukkah. Share with your family and friends.

Source: jewishlouisville.org

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Medinat Israel, the country is named after the people... Not the other way around. The land of Eretz Israel was named after us, long before the language I am typing in was first spoken, over a thousand years before the first proto-Arabic script.

Am Y'israel Chai, means "the people of Israel live" meaning Jews, not Israelis. Because we are the B'nai Y'israel (children of Israel), the Bet Y'israel (house of Israel), the progeny promised to Jacob when he wrestled with G-d and asked to be blessed. G-d gave Jacob the name Y'israel meaning "wrestles with G-d".

Jewish use of the word Israel in our worship isn't a sinister statement... I'm distressed to hear that some people have applied a false idea that the shema is a "zionist chant" (holy shit, stop using the word zionist you don't know how to behave), this is one of our most important and enduring declarations of Emunah

What is sinister though is the denial that Jews are native to our ancestral homeland, and the inability of western leftists to conceive of the idea that Jews including diaspora Jews are native to that land and that this does not invalidate the claim of Palestinians as people who's culture is unique to the region and have been there for over a thousand years... We have a shared homeland, and it should be shared.

Not to mention the genocidal colourism of denying the heritage of Jews that Westerners decide are too pale to claim their levantine heritage, with echoes of Western imperial thinking from around the world aimed at assimilating native peoples.

Judaism grew up organically from the earth there, our culture emerged directly from the Cana'ani who laid the first stones of Jerusalem almost 5000 years ago, we were born from them.

Jewish lives were cut down in defence of Jerusalem for a thousand years before the Roman Jewish Wars that forced us in to Diaspora. We defeated Empires in defence of our homeland... Chanukah may be about oil and light and the re-consecration of the Temple, but it is against the backdrop of this

Judah, called "The Hammer" and his brothers leading Jewish armies and defeating the armies of Antiochus of the Seleucid Empire, a Hellenic Successor Kingdom to the Empire of Alexander of Macedon... Establishing the independence of Judea.

Am Y'israel Chai

Chag Chanukah Sameach

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(JTA) — Nearly 50 days after Hamas’ attack on Israel left 1,200 dead, and after weeks of criticism over its silence about allegations of sexual violence during the attack, the  women’s rights group UN Women issued a statement condemning the terror group on Friday.

Then it deleted the post.

“We condemn the brutal attacks by Hamas on October 7 and continue to call for the immediate and unconditional release of all hostages,” read the initial statement, posted on UN Women’s instagram page. It was soon replaced with a statement that dropped the condemnation of Hamas and only called for the release of the hostages.

Word spread quickly among Jewish women activists and Israelis, reigniting their contention that UN Women — an official arm of the United Nations focused on promoting gender equality and women’s empowerment — holds a double standard when it comes to gender-based violence against Israeli women. Some of the critics — including Sheryl Sandberg, a former top Meta executive — have lobbied openly on the topic. Many have used the hashtag “#MeToo_UNless_UR_A_Jew.”

Reached for comment, UN Women told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency that the Instagram post had been scheduled in advance and was deleted because the message in it no longer reflected where the organization wanted to put its main focus.

“In any social media team managing multiple campaigns and during a very busy time like the one we are now with 16 Days of Activism, mistakes can occur,” a representative for UN Women said in a statement sent to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency.

In particular, said the media specialist, the release of some hostages over the weekend as part of a temporary truce changed the organization’s priorities.

“UN Women social media team had pre-planned days in advance [of] this particular post, but then the news broke on the release of hostages and we really wanted to focus on that,” she said. “UN Women has condemned the attacks by Hamas and the deaths of Israeli civilians from the beginning as well as called for the release of hostages, and we will continue doing so until the conflict ends. We have also called for all allegations of gender-based violence to be rigorously investigated, prioritizing the rights, needs, and safety of those affected.”

In late October, the United Nations General Assembly adopted a resolution calling for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza but voted down a provision condemning the Oct. 7 Hamas terrorist attacks. On Monday, Israel’s parliament, the Knesset, held a session on crimes against humanity committed against women during the Oct. 7 massacre.

After an initial statement on Oct. 13 condemning the attacks on civilians in Israel, all of UN Women’s public comments about the war and its impact on women had centered only on Palestinians. Last week, Sima Bahous, the group’s executive director, called for an extension of the current temporary truce into a permanent ceasefire and for the release of all hostages.

The National Council for Jewish Women, which had previously criticized UN Women’s silence on sexual violence against Israeli women, said the group’s second statement last week was inadequate.

“The delayed issuance of a statement that fails to explicitly address the severity of Hamas’ terrorist attack on Israel — such as the brutal murder of over 1,200 people in Israel, torture, and rape of women, as well as the targeting of civilians and families — is equally reprehensible,” the statement said. “Immediate and unequivocal acknowledgment of these atrocities is imperative, given the blatant violation of international law.”

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"These testimonies sharply contradict Hamas' claims of humane treatment or propaganda images of smiling abductees waving to their captors

Members of the Forum of Families of Hostages and the Missing disclosed harrowing details about the treatment of women kidnapped on Israeli territory and held hostage by Hamas in Gaza.

According to Israeli media reports, these women were kept in cages, a claim supported by videos from Hamas' Telegram channel in the aftermath of the October 7 attacks.

Survivors, who recently gained their freedom, reported enduring limited food rations and dire living conditions during their captivity."

anyone defending hamas or claiming they treated hostages "well" has lost all sense of reason and truth and humanity, and their privilege makes me sick, and it's frightening to exist in society with them. to be honest.

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Hen Mazzig

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it's normal and okay for women of any assigned gender at birth to have visible facial hair. hyperandrogenism and PCOS run in my family which cause AFAB people to produce high amounts of testosterone, meaning most of the AFAB people I'm related to have a mustache, sideburns, chin hairs, and/or five o' clock shadow. these women are just naturally like this. it's okay for women to have hairy faces, trans, cis, intersex, or otherwise. women of all kinds naturally grow facial hair.

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Any time I see people call Israel a settler colonialist state I think about the history of the Mizrahi Jews who remained in Judea.

Mizrahi Jews in the seventh century, whose families had lived as native Israelites for 1,800 years, watching the Rashidun Caliphate move the first major wave of Arab Muslim migration into the imperial conquest they called "Military Palestine".

Mizrahi Jews who, over the course of the next 1,200 years, remained in the Levant. The ones who faced persecution, pogroms, and massacres under the Caliphates and Ottomans. The ones who stood strong and stayed put, as access to holy sites they had prayed at for three thousand years were taken from them. The ones who were faced with a choice between conversion and death, but chose neither.

Mizrahi Jews who watched as the modern State of Israel was established-- perhaps sighing in relief for just a moment. Maybe now, they would not be persecuted minorities in the land they had lived in for over three thousand years. Only to see other Mizrahim forced to flee their homes in Morocco, Yemen, Iraq, Egypt, Lebanon, Iran... Muslim-ruled countries that, through official law or social persecution, intentionally forced other Middle Eastern Jews to leave their homes and settle in Israel.

And the Mizrahi Jews today, who are the majority of the population of Israel. Most Israelis today are either Mizrahim who had lived in what is now Israeli territory for millennia, or Mizrahim who lived nearby and were forced by Muslim-majority nations to immigrate to Israel. Now, they get called "settler colonists", they get called "Europeans", they get called "fascists" and "Zionists". The world accuses them of occupying and stealing Palestinian land.

What were they supposed to have done differently?

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Hi, I’m a lawyer. Do want to know what is really meant by a “#proportionate response” under international law? Then read on - and feel free to ask questions!

Under International Humanitarian Law, #proportionality requires that any degree of damage (up to and including death) to #civilians not be “excessive” in relation to the “military advantage anticipated from a strike against a military target.”

We are going to break that down, so everyone understands what exactly that means.

However, first, you should be aware that it is a misnomer that anytime #Palestinian civilians die after an #Israeli strike, it is automatically evidence of an Israeli war crime. This is completely false - the law does not work that way.

Simply, and unfortunately, the international rules of law recognize that civilians are often killed during war; and, most of the time, those deaths are actually not indicative of a war crime.

Instead, the legal test for “proportionality” requires that each individual strike be looked at with a particular balancing analysis.

First, here is a hard and fast rule: the strike must be intended to target a military objective; it is, therefore, an unlawful war crime to strike with the intent of targeting civilians without any military objective whatsoever.

Now, let’s get a little technical while still keeping it simple.

Under the First Additional Protocol to the Geneva Conventions of 1977 at both Article 51(5)(b) and Article 52(2), we know that when #Hamas uses its own population (or Israeli #hostages) as #humanshields - either by using them to shield themselves or to shield their weapons depots - Hamas has, under international law, turned civilians targets into military targets.

That means that when Hamas places weapons caches in and under schools, hospitals, mosques, etc., Hamas has made each of those places legitimate military targets.

So, it has been well-known for many years that Hamas purposefully placed its headquarters underground beneath the al-Shifa Hospital. In doing so, international law holds that the hospital is no longer just a civilian target, it is a legitimate military target.

That does not necessarily give the IDF carte blanche to attack hospitals, schools, mosques, etc.; however, it does mean that an IDF attack on a civilian target that has been made into a military target by Hamas’ use of human shields is not per se illegal under international law.

Instead, such a strike (as is the case with any strike conducted by a military like the IDF), must be analyzed through a balancing test.

One part of this balancing test performed by Israel before each strike is to determine whether the human shields in question are being used voluntarily or involuntarily.

If the human shields are being used voluntarily - meaning the human shields are there protecting Hamas and its weapons of their own volition - then the target remains a completely legitimate military target.

If the human shields are being used involuntarily - meaning Hamas is forcing people to act as human shields to protect themselves and/or their weapons - then the IDF must go back to the balancing test to determine whether the anticipated military advantage of a successful strike would outweigh the reasonably anticipated loss of civilian life.

Importantly, the IDF rules state that if it cannot determine whether a human shield is being used voluntarily or involuntarily, it must presume the civilian is being used against his or her own will and treat the civilians as an involuntary participant.

Assuming that there is a military target & that there may be human shields that are there involuntarily, the next step in the proportionality analysis for each individual strike (remember, proportionality is determined on a strike-by-strike basis, and not as the accumulation of strikes over time) is to try to determine the likely amount of damage to civilian persons and/or property as a result of the strike.

In other words, under international law, Israel must be able to give a sort of “value” to the anticipated impact on civilians (including potential civilian deaths). Simply, a smaller number of anticipated civilian casualties may make the strike proportionate if there is a significant military advantage to be gained by conducting the strike.

However, if Israel determines that the anticipated impact of a strike may cause many civilian casualties, it must make the difficult determination of whether the anticipated military advantage is so significant that it warrants carrying out the strike anyway.

So, if Hamas has a weapons depot underneath a house with two civilians inside, and that house has been used to fire 500 rockets at Israeli civilians, and it is reasonably expected that there are hundreds more rockets under that house, Israel can almost certainly carry out the strike within the confines of international law.

If that same house, however, had 10 families living inside, including many children, it could - and likely would - tip the scales of the proportionality balancing test toward Israel not being permitted to carry out the strike, even though the house has been used to attack Israeli civilians and can be expected to continue to be used to carry out attacks against Israeli civilians.

Now, that balancing test can always change. If that same house is being used to fire long-range, precision-guided missiles at Israel’s major population centers in places like #TelAviv (effectively putting millions of Israeli civilians in danger), the balancing test may tip back in favor of Israel being legally permitted to carry out the strike.

This all suggests the third and final step in the proportionality balancing test: the #IDF must determine and place a “value” on the anticipated military advantage that would be gained if it were to carry out a particular strike.

An attack on Hamas leadership and/or its weapons manufacturers would be considered a high value target. An attack on a single Hamas member who has no special skill, would be a much lower value military target.

Similarly, an attack on a small cache of mortars would have less military value that an attack on a large cache of advanced rockets that can reach large Israeli civilian population centers.

Once the @IDF determines the anticipated “value” of the likely effect on civilian persons and property and the anticipated “value” of the likely military advantage to be gained if the strike is carried out, the balancing test can be performed, and a certain amount of judgment must go into the determination of whether that strike would or would not be “proportionate.”

Importantly, this decision is so vital that the IDF does not simply permit a single solder on the ground with his or her hand on the proverbial (or actual) “trigger” to make that determination.

In fact, the decision of whether a strike is proportionate is not even left up to IDF officers. It’s not even left up to IDF Generals.

Instead, before any IDF strike can take place, IDF Guidelines provide that the proportionality balancing test must be presented to and analyzed by IDF military lawyers who then determine whether the strike is legally permissible as “proportionate” under international law and the rules of war.

And these IDF military lawyers are not mere patsies or people who simply “rubber stamp” what the IDF requests.

In fact, the IDF’s military lawyers work entirely independently of the IDF. They are outside of the chain of command and do not answer to anyone in the IDF, including a General (for example).

Plus, every IDF military lawyer knows he or she may very well be held to account if he or she makes a wrong decision based on the evidence available at the time.

Furthermore, sometimes the decisions to be made while balancing the likely military advantage against the likely civilian casualties can be so difficult that the legality of the strike is first brought to the Israeli Supreme Court for instant review.

Another important concept: the comparison of civilian body counts of #Israelis versus #Palestinians (to the extent those numbers can be trusted since they come directly from Hamas-only) is not relevant to a proportionality analysis. Each strike must be viewed individually to determine proportionality. It is not a test of the cumulative nature of the strikes.

Also, by simply comparing body counts, it does not factor in how many people killed were actually #HamasTerrorists, how many were Hamas collaborators there voluntarily, and it does not consider what military advantage was gained by Israel carrying out any individual strike.

As Israel is now in the process of seeking to secure the military advantage of preventing Hamas from having the capacity to carry out repeated attacks of the kind and nature seen on October 7th, Israel is permitted to act proportionately insofar as necessary to achieve that military objective (the elimination of Hamas and/or its ability to make war).

One more important fact people do not know, but that they should know: according to UN statistics of global conflict, the average civilian to combatant killed ratio is a rather appalling nine civilians killed for every one combatant killed.

That’s why civilian body counts in and of themselves are never indicative of a war crime. Each individual strike has to be analyzed, and unfortunately civilians always suffer disproportionately in wars.

In fact, while Israel is routinely criticized for any of its strikes that kill civilians, you may be surprised to know that Israel’s civilian to combatant ratio is routinely much lower than the nine to one average.

In the very last operation carried out by the IDF prior to October 7 (in Jenin), 0.6 civilians were killed for every one combatant killed.

In that conflict, not only were the IDF’s ratio numbers nowhere near the nine to one international average, but the IDF actually managed to kill more combatants than civilians - something that is extremely rare.

In truth, Israel is targeted by accusations of war crimes almost immediately by the media, by politicians, and by the UN General Assembly despite the fact that those accusations are near 100% of the time based neither in fact nor in law.

Since a proportionality balancing test must be used to determine whether a single specific Israeli strike falls within the confines of international law, someone providing an analysis must have all of the facts Israel considered before carrying out that strike as to the anticipated impact on civilians and the anticipated military advantage. Obviously, anyone who is making a snap judgment critical of Israel could not possibly have that information.

Understand then, that when you see talking heads accusing Israel of “war crimes” immediately after and/or during Israeli strikes, that is not an actual legal analysis under international law of what constitutes a war crime.

Much more likely, what you are witnessing is part of Hamas’ ongoing psychological and propaganda warfare campaign of demonizing and delegitimizing the State of Israel in the eyes of public opinion.

#Hamas_is_ISIS #HamasisISIS #HamasISIS #HamasMonsters #October7massacre

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nd culture is never crying around people because that kind of vulnerability is awful and I like to be actually comfortable and clean and not messy with anything but crying in the middle of the night, almost every night because once you let yourself cry during the night when no one’s there it just seems to keep happening.

nd culture is also reading fanfiction for characters you relate to and working through your issues that way (not exactly getting over them, but understanding them perhaps) I’m my own therapist

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Congo is silently going through a silent genocide. Millions of people are being killed so that the western world can benefit from its natural resources.

More than 60% of the world's cobalt reserves are found in Congo, used in the production of smartphones.

Western countries are providing financial military aid to invade regions filled with reserves and in the process millions are getting killed and millions homeless.

Multinational mining companies are enslaving people especially children to mine.

•••

La República Democrática del Congo vive un genocidio silencioso. Millones de personas están siendo asesinadas para que la parte occidental del mundo pueda beneficiarse de sus recursos naturales.

Más del 60% de las reservas mundiales de cobalto se encuentran en el Congo, y se utiliza en la producción de teléfonos inteligentes.

Los países occidentales están proporcionando asistencia financiera militar para invadir regiones llenas de reservas y en el proceso millones de personas mueren y millones se quedan sin hogar.

Las empresas mineras multinacionales están esclavizando a la gente, especialmente a los niños, para trabajar en las minas.

Street Art and Photo by Artist Eduardo Relero

(https://eduardorelero.com)

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An interesting difference between the pro-Hamas vs pro-Israel movements is how people treat and discuss civilians on the other side.

I have been repeatedly told that, because I want Israel to keep existing and for Hamas (a genocidal terrorist organization) to not win, I must hate Gazan civilians.

In reality, I believe that any innocent civilian blood spilled is tragic. I do not argue that it is good that Gazan civilians are dying, only that the blood is on the hands of Hamas, who used them as human shields. That is why I want Hamas dismantled: they do not just pose a threat to Israel, but to their own civilians too. Additionally, other than a few very fringe groups and individuals, this has been a shared sentiment throughout most of the pro-Israel movement.

So many of the pro-Israel activists I follow publicly condemned the tragic murder of the Palestinian boy in the US. We do not want hate. We do not want death. We simply recognize that peace and Hamas are incompatible.

Meanwhile, people who oppose Israel and support Hamas have repeatedly celebrated Israeli civilian deaths. I've seen people saying that they hoped Hamas would hit more Israeli residential buildings. They tear down posters of the hostages, including posters of Kfir, a baby who isn't even a year old. Regularly, I've seen violence incited at their rallies (by them) against us. I've seen it on my own campus, I've seen it on the news. An elderly Jewish man was killed at one of their rallies, and I have yet to see them say anything to condemn it.

None of them have condemned the broken windows and stolen books at a kosher restaurant. None of them have condemned the stabbing of a Jewish woman and a swastika being drawn on her door. None of them have condemned the Molotov cocktails being thrown at synagogues.

In regards to the actual war, all of them were so frantic to accuse Israel of the hospital hit (which was then proven to be a misfire) but said nothing when, earlier, Hamas had hit an Israeli hospital.

One side, the pro-Israel side, values life on both sides. We don't want civilian deaths. We only want the organization actively seeking our deaths to be dissolved.

The other side, however, makes no such distinction. To them, all Israeli and Jewish blood spilled is the same. To them, it is all cheap.

And I just think that's noteworthy and interesting.

(I recognize that some people are not like this, I am simply writing my observations about the majority of what I have witnessed.)

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Confront yourself with the uncomfortable reality that gender, sex, and sexuality are all fuzzier than you want them to be.

You cannot hold the idea that gender is a social construct while also holding the idea that sex and sexuality are rigid, unchanging boxes. It's all just words and definitions we created to try to explain human experience and guess what! Human experience is messy and complex and not beholden to a dictionary!

Just like gender, sex and sexuality are also more complicated and complex than any lines you attempt to draw in sand around them. Do what you want forever.

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ND culture is getting angry when someone trash talks Sadness (from Inside Out, my special interest/hyperfixation). Like seriously, the Driven By Emotions book gives CONTEXT that the movie didn’t, as to WHY she touched those memories. It was like an instinct, she felt they should be sad after Riley moved away!

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is the tgirl wearing a collar doing it because she has a fetish, or just because it's a cute accessory? is the gay man in leather and a pup mask actually being "indecent" or is he just dressed up like a dog because it's fun? are drag queens doing it because crossdressing is sexy or because drag is an expression of who they are as a person? does the furry walking around in full suit have a boner under their outfit or do they just like cosplaying as their cute cartoon squirrel oc?

you will never know. you can never tell. sometimes even the people doing these things won't have an answer. is it a sex thing? is it kink? who fucking knows! there is no line! public expressions of sexuality aren't immoral to begin with, but if you make any attempt to suppress them, you have to decide what is and isn't allowed, and you are going to get it wrong. there is no way to untangle kink from personality and hobbies and interests. kink does not even necessarily involve sex. sometimes it's just self-expression and vulnerability and sharing a particular dynamic with another person. sounds a lot like (checks notes) literally every other human experience that exists.

i'll say it again: the person wearing a leash in your vicinity is not sexually assaulting you. they're just wearing a leash.