#Free Palestine from both Likud and Hamas

[blackcur-rants]

@noa-nightingale @strangesmallbard @carcosa-commune @cynicalclassicist

Just to be clear, I don’t think Jessie is a stupid person, far from it, in fact. She is a very smart, well-spoken person in all of her videos that I’ve seen.

However, what I do think is going on with her and this video is that she, like a lot of Leftists and Liberals across the internet, is suffering from what I like to call Star Wars Derangement Syndrome, a phenomenon which I will illustrate below:

Tumblr Jews: Calmly and logically explaining why the Jewish people felt the need to establish a nation state in their ancestral homeland after every other option had been exhausted and how Hamas cares more about destroying Israelis than saving fellow Palestinians

Tumblr Goyim: Oh I get it! Hamas is basically the Rebel Alliance and Israel is basically the Galactic Empire! 

Basically, Jessie is someone who, like a lot of online Leftists and Liberals, gets her politics less from reading actual philosophy and history books and more from her engagement with movies, TV shows, cartoons, comic books, anime, and/or video games. As a result of this, she tends to filter her thoughts and opinions on these complex phenomena like the Israel-Palestine Crisis through a lens of the pop culture she’s absorbed throughout her life + whatever history they vaguely remember from middle school and/or high school and/or poorly sourced, poorly worded Tumblr posts. And quite frankly, Americans of all political stripes have a bad tendency to see morality as a team sport where there’s a Good Team who only ever does Good Things and an Evil Team who only ever does Evil Things. And as far as they are concerned, the Western Powers like Israel and the United States and the United Kingdom are the Evil Team and the Third World is the oppressed Good Team who are a band of scrappy rebels fighting back against The Big Scary Evil Imperial Powers (let’s just ignore that Hamas is a billionaire-led organisation funded by a nuclear power in the form of Iran and the very wealthy nation of Qatar). And everyone is either on one side or the other. Like, you’ll notice she doesn’t specify what Ira Steven Baehr’s specific objections to Jonathan Glazer’s speech actually were, right? Like, it could have been as simple as “Don’t compare the Holocaust to the Palestinian Crisis, especially because part of what made the Holocaust so unspeakably horrific is that it was a mindless Genocide For Genocide’s Sake against populations that posed no threat to either the German People or the German State, whilst Hamas actually does and has done all manner of horrific shit, and the Palestinian War going on currently is horrific because innocent people who are already subject to all sorts of atrocities by their own government are now being subjected to even more atrocities from a foreign government and thus are suffering under two unspeakably awful authoritarian regimes”. I severely doubt a guy like Ira Steven Baehr is going to write that “Actually, Netanyahu and Likud dropping White Phosphorus on residential neighbourhoods and drone striking babies in hospitals is Great! It’s exactly what Mosheh and Eliyahu would have wanted in the Tanakh! How dare you question our Torah, Mister Uncomfortable Dramas with Great Sound Design! You just don’t get it, you villainous boged, you!”.

*Beleaguered sigh* I really hope that Jessie’s upcoming video that she’s releasing later this week lets her speak in a more nuanced manner about these issues and shows a more complex and whole understanding of all of these issues.

@dachi-chan25 @disregardcanon

Okay I... am maybe not the best person to talk about this but I have serious problems with Jessie Gender's new video, When Your Favorite Creator Turns Out to Be Zionist.

Let me first say - I like Jessie Gender. I watched many of her videos and I think she has a lot of very interesting, moving, important things to say about topics like queerness, humanity and such.

But this video just... irked me.

I do not like how she talks about Zionists and Zionism. I have seen how the word Zionist is used against Jewish people. I am not the best person to put it into words but I do not like it when it is used as an insult or implied to be inherently a bad thing.

She seems to use it to mean "person who supports Israel's actions" (implied to support what she calls a genocide throughout the video) and that... is not right.

There are other issues I have as well with the video, like comparing the I/P situation to the Holocaust. There are more things but I am honestly not qualified to speak on them.

Before someone accused me of "supporting a genocide" - I do not. I wish for peace and safety for Palestinians AND Israelis. (And since I have been called a Zionist in the past - I do not consider myself to be one.)

I am just generally disappointed by a creator I like tbh.

I don't think I got my thoughts across very well. I'll be on the lookout for posts made by Jewish people about this video.

[jisreal64]

Hot take:

But a one state solution under either country is a HORRIBLE IDEA!!! If it’s a one state solution under Palestine, then it will be a full dictatorship akin to Iran and Saudi Arabia that oppresses women, queer people, and Jews; and any Israeli that refuses to leave will either be moved by force, arrested, or executed. Meanwhile, a one state solution under Israel will result in a democratic oligarchy that can only be described as a three way mixture between Russia, South Africa, and India, where although the majority will be treated decently, Palestinians who refuse to move to Egypt or Jordan will either be treated almost like lower class citizens, or they will be forcefully deported like Texan border patrol officers and ICE Agents forcefully deporting Latino Immigrants. So yeah, I think that the only way we can go through this is with a peaceful two state solution with a heavy emphasis on human rights, both sides being held accountable for war crimes, and both countries being full time members of the UN. I just don’t want either country being abolished, and it doesn’t help that there is war crimes and misinformation being spread on both sides. Please, just pray for peace, freedom, coexistence, and solidarity. 🇮🇱❤️🇵🇸🕊️

[sethshead]

To free Palestine from Israel, first we must free Palestine from Hamas. Hamas is a force that abuses and oppresses Palestinians. It murders, tortures, and disappears dissenters, opponents, LGBTQ, civil rights and peace activists, and anyone who resists its power, including respected Islamic clerics. It allows women few rights save to be the brood mares for more shuhada. It steals food donations and resells them at inflated prices to the rich, provokes Israel only to then hide behind civilians, and denies civilians anyplace to hide. Hamas is a death cult. A Palestine under its rule, whether within the pre-‘67 borders or from the river to the sea, would be a violent, criminal, gangster failed state.

Yes, Israeli leadership must also change. Likud has never been willing to part with “Judea and Samaria”, no matter how much grief that causes Israelis within the pre-‘67 borders. Netanyahu has been a consummate bad-faith actor, and even the country’s more dovish leaders have still wanted to manipulate the “facts on the ground” to make final negotiations more advantageous to Israel. It is certainly past time for Israel to stop playing games with the futures of two peoples. But Likud can be and has been voted out. The same is not true of Hamas.

I accept that Hamza Howidy is not necessarily representative of the Palestinian electorate. I do not tokenize him; I simply agree with is observations and conclusions. Though most Palestinians do still demand a river-to-sea state or “right of return” (which in practical terms amount to the same thing), Howidy recognizes the obvious. Israel is going nowhere, nor are the Palestinians. Jews and Palestinian Arabs have connections to the land. Each possesses a kind of indigeneity and a right to self-determination in the land of their national origin, whenever that was. Neither wishes to live under the rule of the other.

Any one-state solution is foolhardy, an invitation to further conflict and bloodshed. None who desire that can legitimately be called a friend to Palestinians or Israelis. Recognizing the legitimacy of both of our national aspirations and finding a way to bring us together as neighboring states in respectful peace is the only thing that could remotely be called a victory for either side. If you and all your chants, slogans, rhetoric, and demands do not amount to that, you are doing more harm than good to both peoples.

[mariacallous]

These are different situations in a lot of ways ofc but I've seen the argument made on twitter that the far left is doing the same kinda damage to the free palestine movement that they did to police reform with defund the police/abolish prison rhetoric. They're taking the most extreme stance with 'from the river to the sea' and defending Hamas and ripping down hostage posters and that could turn off moderate people in the same way 'abolish' turned people away from real discussions being had post George Floyd. I just wonder come a year from now when it's time for 2024, what the general public will think of all this rhetoric + Biden's take on the war. What do you think?

I think there’s some validity to that, tbh. I think that when it comes to I/P, people tend to be more vociferous and polarized as they try to “show support” or “advocate”, in a way that isn’t helpful to anyone involved. There is almost no other issue that triggers people’s berserk buttons quite like this topic, to say nothing of the conspiracy and aggressive thinking that comes along with it.

You also get some of the worst people involved being the loudest, which doesn’t help either.

You would think some of the core issues at stake would be universally agreed upon - civilians shouldn’t be targeted, Palestinians have been suffering for a while and deserve rights and freedoms and their own territory (just like Israelis have), and the situation is complicated and has not been handled well by basically everyone - and yet so many people apparently don’t see it that way.

There’s also this zero-sum mentality, where if you acknowledge the atrocity on 10/7 and what was involved, you’re automatically denigrating and ignoring the mistreatment of Palestinians, and vice versa.

The Palestinians have suffered in many ways, and one of those has been to have some of the worst fucking “advocates” in the west and elsewhere.

Rigid thinking, like rigid nationalist ethnostates, helps no one, but people like both of those things.

I’ve said before that people will rhetorically and otherwise use the pro-Palestinian cause to boost themselves and attack Israel and Jews, while doing nothing to actually help the Palestinian people. So much effort has been spent in vanity projects and ineffective campaigns that could and should have been used more successfully elsewhere.

And all of this plays into the hands of people on the right, both in the US and Israel, plays into the hands of “Zionists”, plus into the hands of Hamas and Hezbollah and Iran, and makes real progress much harder.

Fundamentally, the only viable choice is a two-state solution, with freedom of movement. Fundamentally, 10/7 should be a permanent disqualifying failure and shame for Likud and the other parties in Netanyahu’s government.

[petrified-aspen]

Been hearing a lot of people parroting the propagandized idea that "From the River to the Sea, Palestine will be Free!" is an inherently anti-semitic slogan. Immediately upon hearing it, this stinks of anti-Palestinian bias; only the worst faith interpretation of the phrase possible could be taken as even slightly problematic, and I doubt Columbia student protestors mean it in that bad of faith.

But there is a specific assertion that I found particularly fishy:

(if you harass this person, i will be disappointed in you. Feel free to block though.)

This is a big claim: That the phrase originally called for Arabic supremacy over the land, and by saying a 'translated version' of it that has a completely different literal meaning, you are also calling for Arabic supremacy and the ethnic cleansing of Jews. If this is true, this could mean there are violent anti-Semites at your child's school, revolting in support of a new anti-Semitic state! Gasp!

Wait, wait, slow down, don't get wound up so quick! before we act on what we just heard and repost it without a second thought, let's look into it and find a source that isn't complete conjecture from a Tumblr blog!

There's an easy place to start: Wikipedia. I know, I know, you shouldn't cite it in your essay, but it might have some sources that are useful for us! Okay, scrolling.. perfect, a blurb detailing exactly how it was used in the 60's!

Okay, so immediately, we have an example of a pro-Palestinian organization, which predates Hamas, using the phrase to mean something completely different from what the commenter claimed. Now, they would probably wrinkle their nose at the original intent, the "call for an Arab state", and interpret it to be a call for ethnic cleansing. I would like to point out, though, that Zionists have been calling for a Jewish state encompassing Mandatory Palestine for, like, a century (more on that later). Knowing this, it's complete hypocrisy to wrinkle your nose at the implied call the PLO once made while turning the other cheek at Zionist rhetoric which says functionally the same thing. This hypocrisy is made even more obvious by the PLO's revised usage of the term.

See, if you actually wanted to engage with pro-Palestinian protestors in good faith on this topic, you would reasonably assume that the students at Columbia mean the phrase as a call for an Arabic and Jewish state. At the VERY least, you would entertain the idea that they are just as likely to be benign as they are likely to be ideologically aligned with Hamas.

But let's see what the article that Wikipedia cites has to say, just because I'm curious.

Here is a paragraph from page 77 of "From the River to the Sea to Every Mountain Top" by Robin D. G. Kelley:

Turns out, slandering people for their benign use of the phrase "From the River to the Sea, Palestine will be Free" is nothing new, having occurred when Marc Lamont Hill used the phrase in a speech to the UN in 2018. Just a reminder of exactly how deep and how far back these lies run.

The article goes on to identify the ACTUAL origin of the phrase--and what do you know, it isn't Palestinian! In fact, it isn't even Arabic:

"First, the odious phrase in question began as a Zionist slogan signifying the boundaries of Eretz Israel. The Likud Party’s founding charter reinforces this vision in its statement that 'between the Sea and the Jordan there will only be Israeli sovereignty.'" (Kelley, 78).

The hypocrisy deepens. Not only does "From the River to the Sea, Palestine will be Free" not have anti-Semitic roots, it has Israeli supremacist origins, and was appropriated into a rallying cry for solidarity by the Palestinian Liberation Organization.

"But Hamas is still using it in an anti-semitic way, and you shouldn't contribute to that," you might say. I'm glad you did, because it begs the question; why do Hamas and the PLO have such different ideologies, despite both fighting for Palestinian liberation? Why don't resistance fighters in Gaza align with the PLO rather than with Hamas?

Well, Hamas is really the only group with the funding, equipment, and ranks able to put up an organized resistance against the Israeli attacks on Gaza. There's a very specific reason why; the organization that would become Hamas, as Andrew Higgins wrote in WSJ, was influenced heavily by Israel:

TL;DR: Israeli government officials with jurisdiction over Gaza promoted the development of charities that would fund and build the foundation for Hamas, all because Hamas' right-wing militancy made them an enemy of the Palestinian Liberation Organization and Fatah.

So let me get this straight. Zionists created an Israeli-supremacist slogan, a leftist pro-Palestinian organization (and generations of pro-Palestinian activists afterwards, including Angela Davis) appropriated it to be a rallying cry that promotes cross-cultural and ethnic solidarity, then the Israeli state propped up an anti-semitic group who then re-appropriated the phrase, and now there are politicians, journalists, and likely members of your community spreading lies about the meaning of the phrase to slander a humanitarian movement as anti-Semitic. Did I get everything?

This is what we mean when we say that Zionist propaganda manufactures accusations of anti-semitism to rally more people to their ultimately genocidal cause. All I had to do was open two Wikipedia articles to find evidence of a decades-long effort to project every flaw of Zionism, in all of its senseless violence, onto Palestinians. It took FIVE MINUTES for me to think critically, do a bit of research, and come away from this a more educated person.

I don't doubt that many of the people who are raising the alarm about anti-Semitism in the Palestinian liberation movement are acting in good faith. As a Jewish person, I am grateful for any legitimate, moral defense of my culture. But if you aren't willing to put the work in to analyze if what you're reading (and repeating) is actually true, then you will only harm the movement in the long run; at best, you're depriving yourself of crucial tools for solidarity, such as this rallying cry. At worst, you're slandering people and and risking their livelihoods and their safety.

Here's my citations, I highly recommend you check them out:

Oh, and I almost forgot: From the River to the Sea, Palestine will be Free!

https://www.jstor.org/stable/26873236

[eretzyisrael]

Hamas flags have been seen on the streets of London, Hezbollah flags have been seen on the streets of London, Al Qaeda flags have been seen on the streets of London, ISIS flags have been seen on the streets of London, Islamic Jihad flags have been seen on the streets of London, Boko Haram flags have been seen on the streets of London. We are hearing calls for Jihad and chants of 'from the river to the sea', 'free Palestine' and worse, making the Jewish population of this great city, which prides itself on its diversity and tolerance, feel extremely uncomfortable.

Both free speech and freedom of expression are vital components of any democracy. What we are seeing and hearing right now are neither - these haters have crossed the line.

Likud Herut UK

[undefeatednils]

The Israeli counterattack on Gaza just drains me.

So much suffering, on both sides. Jewish families learning of the fates of their missing relatives, Palestinians fearing that today might be their last day, children in Gaza experiencing yet another war, this time the most destructive one in decades...

And in the meantime, propaganda of the worst kind. People celebrating the monsters at Hamas are terrible. As are those who instrumentalize the pain Israelis face to justify attacks on any group that shows any sympathy for Palestine and Palestinians.

There are only two genuine solutions to this pain and suffering in the long term. I sincerely believe that. Those are either a two-state solution that aims to create a viable Palestinian state that exists alongside Israel using roughly 1967 borders, or a secular, binational state with the explicit right to return for Palestinians and a constitution that firmly protects minority rights with an eternity clause. Remigration of Jews out of the region should, in my opinion, not even be a suggestion.

Still, the loudest voices are the ones that explicitly align themselves with extremes. Those who claim that Palestinian Arabs have lost the right to statehood, the right to not live under apartheid for even more decades. And those who don't see Israeli lives as worthwhile. Who dismiss even the dead of the kibbutzim, who are among the strongest and fervent advocates for peace in Israel, as mere colonizers who deserve the worst.

Here in Germany, where the media is unnecessarily kind to the perspective of Israeli right-wingers, good people are now turning into hardliners that see anything but absolute loyalty to the IDF and Likud as antisemitism of the worst degree. Even if comes from Jews. Even if it comes from Israeli Jews. It's sickening.

I'm leaving this untagged to make it harder to find. Thank the hellsite for having a bad search system. Ultimately, I just want people to live without fear. And despair breeds violence. And violence begets violence.

That cycle must be broken. And Israel has been responsible for keeping the wheel turning. I just hope that there will be change for the better.

Free Palestine. And safety for Jews.

Never again.

[winterthebeau]

Is it wrong that I support a peaceful two state solution between Israel and Palestine instead of a one state solution under Palestine? Don’t get me wrong, I think a lot of the people in the Israeli government are no better than groups like Hamas, but most of the whole “death to Palestine” stuff comes from a conservative Republican-style party called Likud. I believe that there should be a ceasefire between the two countries and that both Hamas and Likud should be abolished, and I feel like a one state solution under either country would result in genocide and oppression from each government (in the case of Israel it would be discrimination against Palestinians and Muslims, and in the case of Palestine it would be discrimination against Jews and Queer people). One final thing is that many people are who support the free Palestine movement because of the war and genocide towards Palestinians don’t care about similar issues like the Syrian Civil War, a war that has lasted for over 10 years where both people who want to overthrow a dictatorship and install a democracy as well as civilians are being bombed by both Syria and Russia.

Yeah, you very much are wrong. It doesnt matter if "only" the conservatives hate Palestinians (which very much isn't true), Israel is a settler colony, and they've been committing different stages of genocide against Palestinians for 70 years, ever since their founding. Hamas only exists to resist this genocide, and Palestine doesn't need to be "freed" from them. Plenty of people care about the Syrian civil war and the Ukraine war, but those aren't the focus at the moment. Stop trying to play down what's happening in Gaza and the west bank.

[fromchaostocosmos]

Genocide is bad. Palestinians are human beings. Free Palestine

The implication of this message is that I think Genocide is good and I don't think Palestinians are human beings.

I would love to say that am confused, surprised, or baffled my this message, but I'm not.

Not because I said anything that would give anyone the impression that I am guilty of what you are accusing me of. But rather I think you sent this message me to me because I'm Jewish and specifically because I'm one of the "Bad Jews".

I'm not one a Jew you can weaponize against other Jews.

In any posts of mine or ones the I have reblogged where I added to them and I talk about Palestinians I am always very clear on the fact they are people.

People like me, like you, like everyone else and deserve to be treated with dignity and respect as a our fellow humans. That when it comes to their experiences and wants we need to listen to them and not speak over them.

I do my best to speak about Palestinians in a way that gives them agency and does not treat them like a monolith.

I think I have also made my stance very clear in regards to this war and what has been going on. While I do not think it qualifies as a genocide what is happening are very much war crimes.

War crimes that committed by both the Israeli government and by Hamas.

I look forward to the day Benjamin Netanyahu pays for his many crimes and when the Likud party no longer has a strangle hold on the Israeli government.

I do not see how sending a message like this helps the Palestine people.

If you want to help in a real and meaningful way here is a post with a list of multiple charities you can choose from to donate to, if you can afford to so, that will help Palestinians in a real tangible way. Rather then you know sending harassing messages anonymously to Jewish people online.

[volja4ua]

Hello, I hope you're doing well.. My name is Mahmoud, and I'm a 17-year-old from Gaza. The ongoing war has devastated my city, destroyed my school, and made daily life incredibly challenging. Despite these hardships, I'm determined to continue my education and build a better future. I've been given a chance to study abroad, but I need help to cover the costs of leaving Gaza, as well as living expenses and other essentials abroad once the crossing opens. If you can, please consider donating or sharing, your kindness can truly make a difference. Thank you. https://gofund.me/bd3ccf0b

Hello Mahmoud! I don’t have any money, but I will definitely implore anyone who happens to read this to give. I’m just a random tumblr user, probably nobody is going to see this, but your cause is a noble one.

Since this is a Palestine related post I’d just like to clarify my position on Israel/Palestine. I stand not with Israel or Palestine, but with the peace-loving people of both nations. Hamas and Likud are the same. Israeli terrorists (what else am I supposed to call people who kill children for political reasons) ought to be treated the same way as Palestinian terrorists. Like the activist John Aziz, I want to see a day when Palestine is an independent nation, participates in global competition, wins awards for music and food and sports, and otherwise is known for things not related to war. It might seem idealistic and naïve, but I believe in this vision of Gaza. I’m not going to compromise on what I know to be true (killing children is wrong) for some sort of moral expediency.

I’d like to clear up one last thing. Just because I talk about Israel/Palestine less than Russia/Ukraine doesn’t mean I care less about Palestinian suffering. The truth is, RU/UA is probably more fixable. Just give UA weapons and let them into NATO. On the other hand Israel/Palestine can’t be solved by just giving one side more weapons, that would end with genocide of one side or the other. The only solution is peace, and that’s a lot harder. Plus, it’s the Middle East! There’s a reason ‘peace in the middle east” is listed in the same breath as “curing cancer”. So in short, all victims of war and displacement have equal dignity. But in triage, you have to prioritize. When two patients are equally sick, you choose the one who can be cured faster. I wish you luck, Mahmoud, on all of your endeavors. Free Palestine.

[merrikstryfe]

A World With Just Two Options

“We are in a world with just two options,” Green declared at one point. Either an “endless war, an endless cycle of blood,” or an Israel-Palestinian peace agreement. And to give that second option a chance, he and Abed both are bringing a critical message to progressives in America: The zero-sum game of competing oppressions, of competing unilateral claims to justice, is doomed. Green was vociferous on this point. “The whole of Israeli society is being completely overlooked” in the global debate over the war, he said. “And no one is going anywhere. The only question that needs to be asked is how we can live together.”

People like him in Israel are very aware of how the left here is talking about them, and it’s not helping. “You can call me a colonizer or a settler,” he declared, “but I’m not going anywhere. And neither are the Palestinians.” When people chant, “Palestine will be free,” he said, “we Israelis hear, ‘without you.’ In the same way that a lot of Palestinians hear the ministers in Bibi’s government speak and think they want to do the same thing to them.” The problem as they both see it is that we are caught between two polar opposites. “Hamas believes in Greater Palestine,” Green said. “And on the other side we have people who believe in the idea of Greater Israel.” Indeed, that concept is in the charter of Netanyahu’s Likud Party. “Both sides have very problematic governing bodies,” he added. And the status quo of maintaining the occupation and managing the conflict has been exploded now.

Abed denounced the academic left’s pronouncements on the conflict. “It’s so theorized—colonized and colonizers—without any connection to how you build a change on the ground.” Green cut in, “We are not here to entertain you,” alluding to how performative the pro-Palestinian protest movement appears to him. “We are going to stay here.” I asked them how they, as people on the left, had managed to avoid the simplistic binary that sees the Israelis as the oppressors with more power and the Palestinians as the oppressed with less power, which leads to acting like the oppressor can do nothing right and the oppressed can do no wrong.

“We live together,” Abed said. “I know the conversation here. And I have decided to take responsibility for my society, instead of just saying ‘Free Palestine.’” She paused, and then offered an example of what her lived reality of Jewish-Arab solidarity actually felt like. “One of our leaders in Standing Together, Chaim Katzman, he was at Masafer Yatta [a collection of Palestinian villages in the southern West Bank that the Israeli government is demolishing] every week.” Her voice caught. “And they [Hamas] shot him dead.” Everyone in the room heaved a little. Abed apologized for “triggering” anyone’s trauma and a woman seated near her responded that she needn’t apologize, that we are all “triggered as fuck.”

Abed gathered herself. “Other than proving you are more right, what is your mission?” Abed asked of the Palestine solidarity movement. “If it’s not helping, then shut the fuck up.” She went on, “The damage it is doing to our work; it’s fueling so much hate.” In her view, the more shrill the language deployed against Israeli policies or the country itself, the more hardliners in the government and in public opinion are strengthened. “The global left has to be synced with what we need. Holding a sign with the Israeli flag in a garbage can—how does that help at all? Other than making you feel righteous. It’s heartbreaking to me how distant I feel from Palestinian-Americans here.”

i am once again asking you to support standing together

[stephenjaymorrisblog]

Right Wing Lies About Anti-Semitism

Stephen Jay Morris

5/2/2024

©Scientific Morality

Here is a supposition for all of you: Suppose I was Anti-American. I was opposed to the foreign policy of the good old USA. Would that make me anti-White? Would that make me anti-Christian? Of course not! Suppose I said that O.J. Simpson was guilty of murder? Would that make me racist? Hell, no! Just because I oppose the Prime minister of Israel and his Likud Party doesn’t mean I hate Jews, or even Israel.

The Goyim of the American Right are draykopfs.  They have no comprehension of the Jewish people’s history. They only see Israel as a Middle East foothold of American Imperialism. Members of the Zoomer Left refer to Israel’s supporters as Zionists. Wrong! Do you realize how many denominations of Zionism there are? First, the word, “Zionism,” is Hebrew for “nationalism.” There are different types of Zionism. For one, there is Socialist Zionism, under which Jews live in Kubutz, a commune. Also, Israel would then live a under a socialist economy. Then there is Liberal Zionism, wherein the politics are almost the same as those of American Democrats. I won’t list all of them here.

Here is the culprit of today’s Israel. Ze’ev Jabotinsky was the founder and leader of the Revisionist Zionist. He was not just a theorist of Zionism; he was also an activist. In 1930’s he went to Germany to warn German Jews to pack up and get themselves to Palestine. They laughed at him! He was told, “This is Germany! Nothing bad could happen to us.” Well, six million dead Jews later, he was proven correct. Gentiles really hated Jews. Years later, in 1973, the Likud Party was founded. They had plans for Israel, including eliminating all vestiges of Socialism and creating a capitalist Israel. There is unspoken racism by Ashkenazi Jews (White Jews) against Sephardic Jews (Brown Jews). Out of the 14 prime ministers Israel had at the time, only two were Sephardic. Sephardic Jews are the workers and soldiers of Israel. The Ashkenazi Jews run the country. The Arabs are second-class citizens.

The grand plan of the Likud Party is to make Israel a pure Jewish State. The Arabs would have to leave. Currently, Israel is a secular democracy, but the Likud Party would like to change that to a Theocratic state. They tried to abolish Israel’s Supreme Court, but Israelis went apeshit and took to the streets. The Likud Party wants to abolish the Prime Minister’s office and install a lifelong dictator. Plus, they want to expand Israel’s territory. Gaza is a pushover, as is the West Bank. Taking land away from Jordan is next on the agenda. Maybe after that, it’s Iran?

Israel has bought off American politicians—both Democrats and Republicans—with money. Lots of it. This explains President Biden’s loyalty to Israel. And let’s not forget Trump. He is also owned. Benny yahoo would rather deal with Trump than Biden, since Trump is easily swayed by gifts and money and, lest we forget, compliments.

Now let’s get to the accusation of Antisemitism of the Zoomer Left. It is an erroneous accusation, if not outright dog shit! No Jewish college student is afraid for their life because of anti-war protestors. First, that assumption is Antisemitic in itself. It portrays Jewish students as weaklings who need protection from groups of students who are outraged by the genocide in Gaza. Plus, a lot of Jews are themselves demonstrating alongside the Free Palestine coalition. Now, here’s the kicker: Most of the Left are anti-religion. They dislike theocracy of any type, be it Christianity, Judaism, or Islamic. Hamas is a religious Right terrorist group. They hate the left! There used to be a Palestine Communist Party, but Hamas destroyed them. Hamas not only hates Jews, but all “infidels.”

Are the Christians in colleges threatened? Shit, no!  The Free Palestine movement does not support Hamas. If anybody tells you otherwise, they have been paid to lie, to alarm you, or are completely ignorant! So, the Jews in college have nothing to fear.

Tell me I am wrong.

[sethshead]

“We are in a world with just two options,” Green declared at one point. Either an “endless war, an endless cycle of blood,” or an Israel-Palestinian peace agreement. And to give that second option a chance, he and Abed both are bringing a critical message to progressives in America: The zero-sum game of competing oppressions, of competing unilateral claims to justice, is doomed. Green was vociferous on this point. “The whole of Israeli society is being completely overlooked” in the global debate over the war, he said. “And no one is going anywhere. The only question that needs to be asked is how we can live together.”

People like him in Israel are very aware of how the left here is talking about them, and it’s not helping. “You can call me a colonizer or a settler,” he declared, “but I’m not going anywhere. And neither are the Palestinians.” When people chant, “Palestine will be free,” he said, “we Israelis hear, ‘without you.’ In the same way that a lot of Palestinians hear the ministers in Bibi’s government speak and think they want to do the same thing to them.” The problem as they both see it is that we are caught between two polar opposites. “Hamas believes in Greater Palestine,” Green said. “And on the other side we have people who believe in the idea of Greater Israel.” Indeed, that concept is in the charter of Netanyahu’s Likud Party. “Both sides have very problematic governing bodies,” he added. And the status quo of maintaining the occupation and managing the conflict has been exploded now.

[…]

Abed gathered herself. “Other than proving you are more right, what is your mission?” Abed asked of the Palestine solidarity movement. “If it’s not helping, then shut the fuck up.” She went on, “The damage it is doing to our work; it’s fueling so much hate.” In her view, the more shrill the language deployed against Israeli policies or the country itself, the more hardliners in the government and in public opinion are strengthened. “The global left has to be synced with what we need. Holding a sign with the Israeli flag in a garbage can—how does that help at all? Other than making you feel righteous. It’s heartbreaking to me how distant I feel from Palestinian-Americans here.”

Standing Together is several clicks left of me overall, but in terms of ending conflict and creating a space in which two peoples (or more) can thrive, I stand with Abed and Green.

I will say this for the thousand and first time: Israel and Palestine cannot be a zero-sum game if either people want freedom. All of the fashionable rhetoric that delegitimizes Israel or frames Zionism as inherently and uniquely racist, violent, colonialist, etc., won’t help to bring about Palestine or improve the lives of Arab Israelis. No faith in the miracle of ‘67, in the inextricability of Judea and Samaria from Israel will bring Israelis security and calm.

The path of “managing the conflict” has been proved unsustainable. The only other option is engagement, compromise, and peace. The alternative is to throw away lives and potential, and that is to no one’s benefit.

[jacobsvoice]

The New York Times, Zionism and Israel

(September 13, 2022 / JNS) Nearly a century ago, The New York Times hired Joseph W. Levy, who had spent his boyhood in Jerusalem, as its foreign correspondent in Palestine. Fascinated with archeological discoveries that affirmed the truth of the biblical narrative, Levy admired Zionist land development and the newly founded Hebrew University. He enthusiastically embraced the Zionist narrative of a previously barren land suddenly “flowing with milk and honey.” He admired “the new type of Jew” who was “a member of the chosen people, once again a free citizen in his ancestral homeland.”

The eruption of murderous Arab violence in 1929—when Jews were slaughtered in their ancient capital cities of Hebron and Jerusalem—shocked Levy. Nevertheless, he blamed Zionists for their failure to establish “friendly relationships and cooperation” with local Arabs. His evident anti-Zionist bias would remain the hallmark of Times coverage of Palestine, and eventually, Israel.

Jewish statehood was staunchly opposed by the Times, lest it compromise the loyalty of American Jews to their home country. Publisher Adolph Ochs, a committed Reform Jew, insisted that Judaism was a religion only, not a national identity. His Sulzberger family successors embraced his discomfort with Zionism and the idea, no less reality, of Jewish statehood.

The birth of the modern-day State of Israel has remained problematic for the Times ever since. It became evident once Thomas L. Friedman was appointed Jerusalem bureau chief in 1984. He was an unrelenting critic of Israel for its “occupation” of Jordan’s West Bank—biblical Judea and Samaria. Jewish settlers were repeatedly blamed for obstructing peace with Palestinians, who showed no sign of wanting it.

Returning to Washington in 1988, Friedman’s newly published From Beirut to Jerusalem emphasized Israel’s occupation of “Palestinian” land, leading to its moral decline. He celebrated the emergence of Palestinians as a “people,” absurdly identifying their violent intifada with the American struggle for civil rights and equating Jewish settlers with Palestinian suicide bombers.

Several Jewish Jerusalem bureau chiefs followed in Friedman’s footsteps. Serge Schmemann blamed “the bellicose settlers of Hebron” for the assassination of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin by a resident of a Tel Aviv suburb. After a Likud election victory, Joel Brinkley warned of “a right-wing theocracy.” Steven Erlanger blamed Israeli governments for failing to confront “extreme and ideological” settlers, who he equated with Hamas.

Jodi Rudoren, who grew up in an Orthodox family, focused on Israeli responsibility for Palestinian suffering. Following the murder of three rabbis in a Jerusalem synagogue, she blamed “extremists on both sides.” A Times editorial described it as “a tragedy for all Israelis and Palestinians.”

Times Jewish columnists have been incessantly critical of Israel. Roger Cohen warned that it “cannot remain a Jewish and democratic state” with its “undemocratic system of oppression in territory under its control, … inflicting on disenchanted Palestinians the very exclusion Jews lived” for centuries. Its “corrosive business of occupation” and “messianic religious Greater Israel nationalism” threatened democracy.

No columnist lacerated Israeli settlements more persistently than Anthony Lewis. Identifying himself as a “friend of Israel,” he equated Israeli “occupation” (of its biblical homeland) by “Jewish zealots” with South African apartheid. Settlement, he asserted, “mocks the tradition of Jews as a people of law.”

Echoing Lewis’s absurd analogy Friedman feared that “scary religious nationalist zealots” might lead Israel into the “dark corner” of a “South African future.”

Friedman has remained an unrelenting critic of Israel. He yearns for a “two-state” solution with Palestine occupying biblical Judea and Samaria. Otherwise, Israel will “be stuck with an apartheid-like, democracy-sapping” occupation. He believes that his repetitive castigation of Israel helps it to preserve its moral integrity. In fact, it reinforces his stature as the most unrelenting Times critic since Joseph Levy paved the way nearly a century ago.

How ironic that a newspaper with Jewish publishers for nearly a century that has employed a stream of Jewish reporters, Jerusalem bureau chiefs and columnists should engage in unrelenting criticism of the world’s only Jewish state.

Jerold S. Auerbach is the author of 12 books, including “Print to Fit: The New York Times, Zionism and Israel (1896-2016).”

[daniel-nerd]

islam, christians, and jews, all believe in basically the same god with different books added or removed, so saying stuff like “its the land of the jews” is basically saying “my religion is more important”. its the land of ALL the 3 religions, palestinians who lived in and around this land for centuries, and went through hundreds of wars on this very strategical piece of land. there ARE arab jews who are native to this land, who lived mostly in peace with other arabs, and around the same time european jews started adopting zionism, thinking that judaism isn’t only a religion but also a nationality, arabs on this land started identifying as palestinians.

zionists believed europeans can’t not be antisemitics, and that the only way to free them from persecution is by COLONIZING palestine, (and yes, they called it colonialism) using the power of an empire who support them.

at first they planned on colonizing a few different places, the 2 dominant options were palestine, and uganda, they believed both of these lands with their own native people, are theirs to inherit, because the european mindset corrupted their views on the world, and they thought its their land to own.

eventually the british empire, who won the land of palestine from the ottoman empire, thanks to palestinians, who the british promised to give them the land for their help against the ottomans, decided that giving the lans to europeans would be better, because they could keep an eye on the suez canal.

the more europeans arrived the more fighting between arabs and jews occurred. when the british empire decided to limit jewish immigration, jewish militias started terrorizing both arabs and british, bombing roads, train tracks, and even buildings, finding loopholes in british law to expand further and illegally immigrating to palestine.

in 1947 the UN decided to divide palestine to 2 different countries, israel, and palestine, with jerusalem being international zone. giving more than half of the land to jews, who were something like 30% of the population at the time. the arabs of neighboring countries(who got their independence not long before that) saw this as europeans colonizing palestine, which it definitely was, and zionists even called it colonialism.

the reason a bunch of arab states started being hostile to jews was because of the colonialism, and specifically the nakba, which was an attempt to ethnically cleanse israel and palestine from non jewish arabs. including stuff like burning villages down and cramming all the arabs who weren’t in other countries already(e.g lebanon and jordan) into gaza, murdering the ones who didn’t agree to flee.

since the establishment of israel, the israeli government stopped and sabotaged every attempt to establish a palestinian state, and the war against hamas is just the most recent example.

using chemical weapons, carpet bombing densely populated areas, a rise in settelers violence and terror attacks in the west bank, with protection of the idf. passing a law that allows banning of journalism. violating more international laws than i even knew existed! committing war crimes that i cannot even fathom how humans are capable of. recent CNN article shows the literal concentration camps where they TORTURE palestinians, israeli whistleblowers said that amputation is an everyday occurrence due to the torture, which let me remind you, is not only a crime against humanity but also not moral under any circumstances.

and of course who can’t forget the likud and its friends, the likud(aka the ruling party in israel) was called “very similar to the nazis” by albert einstein, and became worse with the years, now the likus isn’t even the main identifier of the party, netanyahu is, and the “bibistim” act like a cult, and very similar to how nazis acted. with other more extreme parties who are very close friends with the likud allowing stuff like LITERAL TERRORISM and protect settlers who commits ACTS OF TERROR.

also there’s the whole starving of gaza and invasion of rafah which everyone in the world agrees to be a bad idea, but netanyahu cares more about keeping the war going rather than human lives.

no matter how you look at this, only way to think israel is in the right is if you believe the jewish religion is more important than any other religion, and that jewish people are superior to arabs(aka a very fascist worldview, which proved itself as super dangerous, and harmful to everyone, again, and again, and again. one of the most famous examples is the fucking holocaust, which zionists use to excuse their attempt of genocide)

hope this palestine history 101 clear things out. and if toy still think carpet bombing, starving, chemical weapons, torture, and state protected terrorism is somehow the correct side of history, at this point you’ve gone too far into fascism, and i doubt anything will change your mind.

today is the israeli day of remembrance for idf soldiers and people who died in terror attacks.

the official number of deaths is 25,040.

the latest official palestinian death toll is from just before the invasion of rafah. 34,844 people.

in 7 MONTHS israel killed more people in gaza than the amount of deaths in Israel’s history.

and that’s ignoring the fact that israel’s population is 5 times gaza’s population.

remind me again how israel is the good guy and just defending itself?

[thisdaynews]

OPINION | Netanyahu’s Exit Won’t Jump-Start a Peace Deal

New Post has been published on https://thebiafrastar.com/opinion-netanyahus-exit-wont-jump-start-a-peace-deal/

OPINION | Netanyahu’s Exit Won’t Jump-Start a Peace Deal

This is true no matter if the election’s outcome is a National Unity Government composed of Likud (minus Netanyahu) and Benny Gantz’s Blue and White party, or a narrower coalition formed by Gantz. There could be ameliorations, of course. A Gantz-led government in particular might seek to improve living conditions in the West Bank, slow down the pace of settlement construction outside of the major settlement blocs and avoid some of its predecessor’s most provocative desires such as formal annexation of the Jordan Valley. The Palestinian leadership, under virtually no international pressure to restart negotiations with Israel as long as Netanyahu is in power, might feel compelled to do so with a more acceptable prime minister in his place. And the U.S. administration might finally unveil its peace plan, long-awaited and long-forgotten in equal measure.

Yet none of this would add up to measurable progress on the way to resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. History has long taught that economic betterment of the Palestinians is no substitute for steps that address their political aspirations. Prospects for successful peace negotiations on core final status issues—such as borders and Jerusalem—seem equally dubious. Gantz would be greeted with high expectations; he is, after all, a former Israeli general and chief of staff cut in the mold of Yitzhak Rabin: strong, pragmatic and potentially flexible.

But Gantz is no man of the left. He is, if anything, a representative of the old right—a tough, militant patriot whose primary focus isn’t on ending conflict with the Palestinians but ending incivility, divisiveness and polarization among Israelis. Gantz was virtually silent on the Palestinian issue during his two electoral campaigns, preferring, like Netanyahu, to focus on the threat from Iran. He has taken the current government to task for being too soft in its policies toward Gaza. He supports permanent Israeli control over the Jordan Valley. He has welcomed all of President Donald Trump’s most controversial steps, including his administration’s decision to move the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem, recognize Israel’s sovereignty over the Golan Heights and announce that settlements do not contravene international law. He may have done some of this chiefly for electoral purposes, to avoid being painted as too far to the left. But Gantz is hardly a free agent. He will be constrained by his party’s leadership, including the hawkish Moshe Ya’alon and more than a few of its members who might feel just as comfortable among the ranks of the Bibi-less Likud.

Not that the Israeli government’s makeup would be the only obstacle to meaningful peacemaking. The Palestinian side presents its own considerable challenges. Divided and dysfunctional, its leadership has lacked a coherent military or diplomatic strategy to end the occupation or negotiate a two-state solution. The split between Fatah and Hamas, the principal branches of the national movement, has meant that there are now two of everything—two statelets, two security services and at least two visions of what and even where a future Palestine should be. President Mahmoud Abbas, whose mandate expired years ago, lacks the authority and legitimacy to make consequential decisions on behalf of his people, let alone decisions pertaining to a final status deal—and so, he has systematically preferred to avoid rather than make them, his presidency becoming an exercise in inertness.

Then there is the matter of the U.S. administration’s peace plan. With a new government in place and Trump apparently seeking to draw attention away from the impeachment hearings by more actively engaging on the foreign policy front, the odds of it putting out the plan will rise. Much of what has been written about the proposal and its purportedly pro-Israeli bias has been speculation—albeit speculation based on the track record of an administration that has shown little compunction in moving unashamedly toward right-wing Israeli positions, breaking from well-established bipartisan stances and jettisoning U.S. relations with the Palestinians.

Yet even assuming the conjecture has been wrong and that the plan includes such heresies as acceptance of a Palestinian state or of a Palestinian capital in parts of Jerusalem, the idea that it can come remotely close to what Palestinians—from the most pragmatic to the most hard line— will accept is pure fantasy. There is not a chance the proposal will go as far toward addressing Palestinian requirements as did the parameters suggested by President Bill Clinton in 2000, the ideas put forward by then-Prime Minister Ehud Olmert in 2007,or the plan presented to Abbas by President Barack Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry in 2014—all of which were rejected by the Palestinian leadership. There is not a chance that same leadership will accept less today than what it turned down when it had more confidence in the U.S.

Some wild cards could come into play. At 85, Abbas may leave the political scene in the near future, triggering a scramble for power and a new Palestinian leadership configuration. Palestinians in the West Bank could join their many brethren around the region and rise up—against the Israeli occupation, the Palestinian Authority’s rule, or both. But it is hard to see either event triggering a short-term breakthrough in the peace process; in fact, both could push preoccupation with a negotiated settlement even further into the background. For now, the upshot is that neither the bottom-up approach of improvements on the ground nor the top-down approach of U.S. proposals will move the needle.

If anything, the more things change in Israel, the more Israeli-Palestinian peacemaking will remain the same. Therein lies the paradox: Perpetuating the status quo in Israeli politics— meaning Netanyahu’s continued premiership—arguably was the likeliest way to break the logjam and transform both Israeli-Palestinian and U.S.-Israeli dynamics. Netanyahu in power meant scant prospects of material betterment for the Palestinians, of revived negotiations, let alone of a two-state solution; it meant a greater potential for ever more provocative steps such as annexation of parts of the West Bank, thereby forcing a conversation about alternative ways of approaching the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

It also meant a downward spiral in relations between the Israeli government and important segments of the American public—especially among a younger generation of Democrats and American Jews, alienated by Netanyahu’s overt pro-Republican partisanship; his affinity for authoritarian and illiberal leaders worldwide and inflammatory anti-Arab rhetoric at home; and his kowtowing to his Orthodox coalition partners and ignoring the concerns of American Jews on any number of religious issues, such as a more egalitarian prayer space at the Western Wall. All of whichmade it at least conceivable to start a more open and honest debate over how the U.S. should involve itself in the dispute.

There have been some incipient signs of late of such an evolution: in poll numbers that show a growing percentage of Americans, notably younger ones, supporting a more evenhanded U.S. approach and open to alternatives to a two-state solution; in the increasing number of Democratic officials prepared to criticize Israel; and in the willingness of several of the party’s presidential candidates to debate topics not long ago considered off-limits, such as linking the provision of military assistance to Israel with the uses to which it is put. In this sense, the principal asset of those hoping for a more radical break from the past was the person embodying all that they reject—Netanyahu.

His expected departure from the political scene suggests that this theory, interrupted midexperiment, is unlikely to be tested anytime soon. Instead, with a more broadly respectable Israeli prime minister, the pendulum could well swing back to where it had been from the early 1990s onward: resumption of a peace process that is mostly process and no peace; a focus on steps on the ground that improve the conditions of the occupation without ending it; and bipartisan support for a U.S. mediating role that tends to accommodate existing realities rather than challenge them.

A happier face will be put on negotiations, on the occupation, and on Israeli-U.S. relations. Netanyahu’s exit, ironically, could be his final, unwitting gift to the goal he pursued and that his prolonged tenure would have endangered: ensuring—at least in American eyes— that the unsustainable status quo is still sustainable.

Aaron David Miller is a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment and a former State Department Middle East analyst and negotiator in Republican and Democratic administrations.

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