#Look at the way they talk about Muslim people/anyone at all from a Muslim country

[here-there-were-dragons]

my mother is absolutely convinced of some nonsense conspiracy theory that (in her words) "originally humanity lived in peaceful all-woman societies of goddess worshippers who took care of eachother and lived in harmony, while males were roving loners that had no society and never cooperated. that changed when the men banded together and overthrew the peaceful woman-dominated societies, and enslaved us all." and, according to her, this is proof that a woman-dominated world would be innately more peaceful, and that men are innately violent and evil and should be either barred from holding any legal power or leadership roles or at least should be (again in her words) "gelded like bulls" to remove their testosterone before even being considered for such a thing.

she also evidently believes that the problem with all religions today is primarily that they aren't "goddess worshippers", because she seems to think goddess religions are inherently peaceful and pure too and seems to be especially obsessed with "Isis" in particular. the very very few times she's openly considered it unambiguously bad for some population or another to have been exterminated (she's got a bad case of devil's advocating genocide brain), she's gone out of her way to make up some crap about how said people were a peaceful society of goddess-worshippers, almost always of isis. delusions of isis-worship seem to be the only thing that ever causes her to consider any arab or middle-eastern culture, society, or ethnicity to be relatively uncomplicatedly undeserving of extermination, in fact, because every fucking time she doesn't immediately start devils-advocating it and making remarks about how "the rest of the world should box them in and let them blow eachother up" it's when she's whinging on about how whatever specific micro-ethnicity she's thinking about are or were traditional persecuted isis-worshippers.

the sole major exception to her weird fixation on isis worship justifying worthiness of life is the whole israel thing going on, in which she has consistently made very obvious that literally the only reason she's against the genocide of palestine is because it gives her an excuse to even more openly hate jewish people than she already did. and honestly i'm not sure even that's true because i think she's made some offhand remarks about palestinians having probably been peaceful isis worshipers before the jews infected them with christianity or something anyway.

so for the last, however fucking long it's been i've been constantly having to listen to her go off about how this behavior is in the jew's blood or whatever and that they literally invented all genocide because somehow the concept didn't exist before them and wouldn't have ever been invented by the rest of humanity without those jewish aliens dropping it in i fucking guess apparently and she furthermore goes on about how every single genocide and mass-oppression movement in history is directly inspired by them, ESPECIALLY the nazis, and THEN i have to listen to her rant about how, basically, wwii was something they entirely brought on themselves by "dominating the economy and treating everyone not them like shit" and the nazis were just "using their own tactics back at them". and then she goes on a rant about how the people the original jews exterminated back in the day (aka the first ever genocide, which they invented, because jews invented genocide and hate according to her) in the middle east region were peaceful matriarchal isis-worshipers.

and then she starts making comments about arabs being backwards and palestinians either being mysogynist muslims that should be boxed in to blow eachother up with everyone else or secret peaceful isis worshippers corrupted by men's cruel hand, sometimes in the same sentence, entirely dependent on which group she's more in the mood to hate at the time.

it's exhausting. beyond exhausting. her sole purpose in existence seems to be to have the singularly most exhausting set of politics physically possible to fit into one person.

just, sometimes i think, if there really is anything at all to the incredibly stupid and inexplicably popular idea that anyone or anything has a Purpose tm to exist for, i feel like my mother's purpose is to be walking proof to me of a Type Of Guy That Is Real, cause i sure as fuck would have trouble inventing this mess if it wasn't standing right in front of me spewing confusingly bipartisan hate. all of her thoughts and opinions are these long winding nonsense chains that feel like if that man carrying thing sketch about the friend with confusing politics was a person. on meth.

[pencopanko]

Antisemitism and Islamophobia are very similar (if not the same), actually

So I was scrolling down the #palestine tag for any updates and important information, and I came across this:

And I think we need to sit down and talk about this.

I am a Muslim. I live in Indonesia, a country that is predominantly Muslim and a lot of Muslims here also support the Palestinian cause. Hell, even our government supports it by not only allowing Palestinian goods enter the country without fee, but also by taking in Palestinian refugees and even acknowledging the status of Palestine as a state while not having any political ties with Israel. The topic of the Palestinian tragedy has been spoon-fed to us at schools, sermons, media, etc., so your average Indonesian Muslim would at the very least be aware of the conflict while non-Muslims would hear about it from their Muslim friends or through media.

However, there is a glaring problem. One that I keep seeing way too often for my liking.

A lot of them are antisemitic as hell. The sermons I would hear sometimes demonize Jewish people. Antisemitic statements are openly said out loud on social media. Some are even Nazi supporters who would literally go to anime cons and COSPLAY as members of the Nazi party. This is not just an Indonesian Muslim problem, no, but this is a glaring issue within the global Islamic community as a whole. Today, this sense of antisemitism is usually rooted in general hatred towards the Israeli government and its actions against the people of Palestine, but antisemitism amongst Muslims are also rooted in certain interpretations of verses from the Qur'an and Hadith mentioning Jewish people and Judaism (particularly the Bani Israil), but in a way that is more ridiculing instead of life-threatening when compared to how antisemitism looks like in the Western world.

As someone who prefers to become a "bridge" between two sides in most cases, I find this situation to be concerning, to say the least. While, yes, it is important for us Muslims to support Palestine and fight against injustice, we must not forget that not every Jewish people support the Israeli government. A lot of them are even anti-Zionists who actively condemn Israel and even disagree with the existence of Israel as a state as it goes against their teachings. A lot of them are also Holocaust survivors or their descendants, so it is harmful to think for one second that Hitler's actions and policies were justified. It's just like saying that Netanyahu is right for his decision to destroy Palestine and commit war crime after war crime towards the Palestinians.

As Muslims, we also need to remember that Jewish people (the Yahudi) are considered ahli kitab, i.e. People Of The Book along with Christians (the Nasrani). The Islam I have come to know and love has no mentions of Allah allowing us to persecute them or anyone collectively for the actions of a few. While, yes, there are disagreements with our respective teachings I do not see that as an excuse to even use antisemitic slurs against Jewish people during a pro-Palestine rally, let alone support a man who was known for his acts of cruelty toward the Jewish community in WW2. They are still our siblings/cousins in faith, after all. Unless they have done active harm like stealing homes from civilians or celebrating the destruction of Palestine or supporting the Israeli government and the IOF or are members of the IOF, no Jewish people (and Christians, for that matter) must be harmed in our fight against Zionism.

Contemporary antisemitism is similar to (if not straight up being the exact same thing as) contemporary Islamophobia, if you think about it; due to the actions of a select few that has caused severe harm towards innocent people, an entire community has been a target of hate. Even when you have tried to call out the ones supporting such cruelties, you are still getting bombarded by hate speech. It's doubly worse if you're also simultaneously part of a marginalized group like BIPOC, LGBTQ+, etc. as you also get attacked on multiple sides. This is where we all need to self-reflect, practice empathy, and unlearn all of the antisemitism and unjustified hatred that we were exposed to.

So, do call out Zionism and Nazism when you see it. Call out the US government for funding this atrocity and others before it that had ALSO triggered the rise of Islamophobia. Call your reps. Go to the streets. Punch a fascist if you feel so inclined. Support your local businesses instead of pro-Israel companies.

But not at the cost of our Jewish siblings. Not at the cost of innocent Jewish people who may also be your allies. If you do that, you are no different from a MAGA cap-wearing, gun-tooting, slur-yelling Islamophobe.

That is all for now, may your watermelons taste fresh and sweet.

🍉

Salam Semangka, Penco

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

By: Douglas Murray

Published: Jan 31, 2025

How do wars end?

There is a modern belief that they end around a negotiating table.

In fact, historically, most wars end by one side winning and the other side losing.

Critical to this is that the side that has won knows that it has won, and that the side that has lost knows that it has lost.

Which brings me to the Middle East.

Over the past 15 months, since Hamas invaded Israel and Hezbollah attacked from the north, Israel and its enemies have been in a full-on conflict. The Revolutionary Islamic Government in Iran has been funding and organizing a multi-pronged attack to destroy the Jewish state. And it has failed.

Now, as some Israeli hostages are being returned and an uneasy pause in hostilities continues, some people think that the war might be over.

But it is not — and it should not be.

Not just because the hostages — including the American hostages — ALL need to be returned home. And not just because Hamas still has an active presence in Gaza. As demonstrated by its sick publicity stunts while releasing some female hostages.

No — the reason why the war shouldn’t be over is because it cannot be over until the people who started the war have lost. And are forced to realize that they have lost.

That is why I was so encouraged this past week by comments from President Trump where he talked about clearing people from the Gaza Strip.

His comments have caused howls from around parts of the Arab world and some of the oh-so-progressive countries in Europe and elsewhere. Some of these people have pretended that Trump’s comments are somehow “genocidal.” As though saying that a population should move is somehow “ethnic cleansing” and much more.

But it is no such thing. Recommending that a population might move from where it is living is not the same thing as killing it. That should be obvious to anyone. More important is that his comments change the possible terms of the postwar landscape.

Hamas has ruled Gaza pretty much ever since Israel withdrew from it in 2005. Within living memory, the Strip was ruled by Egypt. But strangely enough, today the Egyptians do not want the Arabs in Gaza to be part of Egypt. Just as the Jordanians seem never to have wanted to welcome the Arabs who live in Judea and Samaria (the West Bank).

It is almost as though they know something that we do not. Which is that these are highly radical populations. Every country that has taken in the Palestinians — including their leadership — has always had terror come in their wake. That has been the case for Egypt, Jordan and Lebanon, among others. The Arab and Muslim world that claims to support the Palestinians does not in fact care for them. They mostly distrust them.

And you can understand why.

Look at the way in which the Palestinians in Gaza voted for a known genocidal terrorist group to govern them. Look at the way in which they celebrated the attacks of October 7 just as they celebrated the 9/11 attacks on this country.

Look at the way that even now, mobs of Gazans and Hamas terrorists surround the terrified female hostages as they are released.

Is there a chance that this population that so enjoys terrorizing Jewish girls could suddenly become a lovely, pluralistic group of people? I’d say not.

The best postwar plans that anyone has been able to come up with seem to include the Palestinians being allowed to start all over again in Gaza. Which means the same thing happening again and again.

It will take many years to rebuild Gaza, whoever is there. It will take years not just because of the devastation — which I have seen with my own eyes — but because to even start to rebuild the Gaza Strip, you would have to fill in the hundreds of miles of tunnels that Hamas used Western taxpayer money to construct all these years. There isn’t an area in Gaza that hasn’t got a tunnel system underneath it, built by Hamas to move around and store weapons in.

How long will it take to remove all the bombs and boobytraps that Hamas has stockpiled in Gaza? How long will it be before anyone could be persuaded to put money into the area?

And in the meantime, where should the population go?

Trump has floated the idea that the Gazans could go to Egypt or Jordan. But I would like to extend that offer. Why not offer them to Ireland, Canada, Pakistan, and all those other countries that profess to care so much for the Palestinians? If they want these terrorist supporters so much, why shouldn’t Dublin, Toronto and Islamabad benefit from their presence? I’m sure the Palestinians will help these countries boom. In their own traditional ways.

Perhaps at some point, they could return to Gaza when they have learned how to govern themselves or be governed by someone else.

But here’s the thing: The citizens of Gaza mainly supported Hamas when Hamas started a war to annihilate Israel. And while Hamas has mostly lost — it has not yet lost completely.

Yet it must lose — completely. And if that means that they are no longer allowed to live in their enclave of terror, then so be it. There is no law of war that says you are allowed to keep waging wars, keep losing them, and then be allowed to do it all over again.

In fact, if you start a war that you then lose, you usually also lose all or most of the territory you started it from. That is not only right, but the only language that these terrorists and their masters understand.

And isn´t it just the best possible rider that all those losers on American college campuses who supported Hamas might now have their student visas withdrawn and so see the consequences of their actions first-hand, perhaps for the first time in their lives.

It’ll be a learning curve and a life lesson.

The lesson being that there are consequences to backing the losers. And for being them.

==

Gaza was previously a client state of Egypt; they were responsible for it, but now disavow any responsbility.

Jordan is, of course, where the so-called "Palestinians" originate from, before they were exiled for trying to overthrow the kingdom. No surprise that Jordan doesn't want anything to do with them and, like Egypt, has taken in no refugees.

But, somehow, Israel is obliged to house and feed the people who tried to murder them.

🤷‍♂️🤷‍♀️

Every country that condemned Israel for fighting the war that Hamas started should be obliged to either take in those poor, poor "Palestinians," or else shut up forever.

This isn't over until Hamas have been wiped out.

[matan4il]

I'm so disappointed in Susan Sarandon right now. How about never ever have a sentence in any context that includes "Jews getting a taste of".

Especially as a woman. Like how do all these women just dismiss the rape of moms. Murdering of children. Putting babies in ovens!!! Ignoring the hostages living in Hell right now. Just I need a sign of humanity right now.

What they did October 7th wasn't warfare. It wasn't against a military. It was barbaric, animal style torture. Anyone not talking about what they did that day is just a soulless monster to me.

Hi Nonnie!

I couldn't agree more. Her antisemitism really jumped out of her there, didn't it? If your response to the Jews of your country being persecuted and scared is, "Good!" I don't care what excuses you use, you're just an antisemite.

Also, saying that "Jews are getting a taste of what Muslims are in this country," like Jews had it coming, only makes sense if you're saying that Jews are somehow responsible for islamophobia in the US? Which is literally the opposite of the truth. An islamophobia Index study found Jews were the least prejudiced in the US against Muslims. But even if it were true, do two wrongs make a right? The very idea that she's using American Islamophobia to justify American antisemitism is also evidence of her just being an antisemite.

But there were many headlines saying she was fired for being pro-Palestinian. Here's a few examples:

Even many of the headlines who didn't call her comment "pro-Palestinian," stated that she was dumped by her agency for comments "at a pro-Palestinian rally" instead of just saying she was dropped for making antisemitic remarks.

It demonstrates exactly how this new antisemitism works. She can say anything antisemitic, no matter how morally wrong, no matter how factually inaccurate, and it just gets cloaked as being "pro-Palestinian." Will American Jews being scared in the US free a single Palestinian in Gaza? No. Did Sarandon speak for Palestinian protesters a few months ago, when they were being killed by Hamas? Also no. Because she doesn't really care about them, they're just a tool for her to be gleeful over Jews being persecuted.

I'm not even gonna talk about her circulating false information about the Jewish state (that Israeli soldiers are the ones responsible for killing Israeli civilians, not Hamas), and that to do so, she retweeted a right wing, white supremacist antisemite. Sarandon, supposedly a human rights, far left activist, amplified the voice of a right wing, white supremacist antisemite. There really is no end to what antisemites are willing to do, or what they think they can get away with under the guise of "just" being anti-Israel, not antisemitic.

I'm glad she got her comeuppance, I'm glad her talent agency dropped her. Not that her acting career has been relevant for decades. She had two iconic roles, which is two more than many actors, but I was looking at her acting credits, and the last time she had an acting role that really made waves at the time is a 1999 movie. And maybe that also explains why she's suddenly so vocally anti-Israeli since 2021, because that's the only way she's made headlines in recent years. IDK to what a degree this also plays a role, but I do think people like Sarandon and Roger Waters are, at least in part, also feeding their own ego, when suddenly their anti-Israel (and antisemitic) comments get them attention, and from certain factions, even praise.

That's a long winded way to say, I totally agree with you. About Sarandon, and about anyone dismissing, ignoring, and especially justifying Oct 7. It was barbaric on levels that are hard to comprehend. I think it's especially telling when hearing forensic examiners, first responders and morgue workers saying that Oct 7 was like none of the other horrors they had witnessed over decades of gruesome work.

I hope you're doing good, lovely, despite how infuriating all of this is. Sending you hugs! xoxox

(for all of my updates and ask replies regarding Israel, click here)

[gryficowa]

I'm going crazy, they want to strengthen this wall on the Polish-Belarusian border, they seriously want to kill everyone trapped on the border

I'm fed up with this country, it will destroy itself with its reborn fascism, it's clear that Donald Trump has played too hard on Polish politicians and I hate it

Why has bullying Muslims become so fucking fashionable?

Poland, USA, UK and Israel, and there's probably more and it pisses me off, but I'm powerless because I have ASD and social phobia, which means I can't even rebel like others, I'm not Greta, I'm someone who is terrified of crowds and I would die on the spot if I had to go on strike with other people in the real world

But I can't pretend that nothing bad is happening here, I'm not silent about the border, Poles, Palestine and other important things, just because I can't physically fight doesn't mean I can't show my frustration in another way

Why are all my attempts to publicize what is happening at the border abroad not working? Are these Muslims less important than the Palestinians and Sudanese?

People were deceived by Lukashenko that he would help them, they were imprisoned, the border guards from both countries abuse them, they do not allow help and they destroyed their phones so that they could not communicate, it is terrible, and the worst is that many right-wingers are supports (And the pro-life wanted to shoot these people)

I remember there was a post (or rather a tweet) about a woman with a cat who was trapped at the border, people laughed like today Israelis laugh at children dying from their bombs, it's terrible that we live in these times, although other leftists talked about the returning fascism and people laughed at them and it hurts

I saw how people attacked them and when they fled from the Taliban they took their children with them because it was irresponsible (Yes, you heard right, people are terrible)

I see the same thing with Israelis (specifically with Zionist views), laughing or attacking families because their child is not at home, or is at home because the Israeli army kidnapped him, people have lost the trait of empathy and it hurts

How many times have I heard that I am under leftist propaganda, or just stupid, because they treat "Bad illegal immigrants" as people + They spread propaganda that these people force you to cry, yes, they are so disgusting

If it turns out that these bastards supporting the border guard suddenly turn out to support Palestine, I will be disgusted by the hypocrisy of these people, I'm sorry, but I hate two-faced people and I say that straight

Yes, I'm fed up with this world, I'm fed up with people in my country using gashlighing to tell me that I'm wrong, that what's happening is wrong and shouldn't be considered normal, my country has been imprisoning people since 2021 borderline and I hate it

If not about Muslims, then about LGBT+ people, because they are not people, but an ideology, so they need to be expelled, I hate it all, this country, which was a victim, has a problem like Israel, and this says something about what is happening, being a leftist in a nationalist country is a challenge because everyone looks at you like you're stupid and laughs at you, although what you say is true, it is the worst in this world, fascism is back and it will be almost impossible to eradicate it, and probably in many decades it will resurface again and find new victims

Poles are like Zionists, they don't listen to anyone because they consider themselves victims, so you have to respect them (And then they go with a billboard saying "Poland for Poles" or other racist shit), it's depressing that a country that survived the holocaust does this the same as the Third Reich, and then he has the nerve to criticize countries for the same shit as himself, it's disgusting and shows how fascism has been reborn, being a fascist has become fashionable and is considered "your own opinion" and the worst thing is that we are powerless because no one listens to us and we are ridiculed for telling the truth, seriously, in such times we live in

The very fact that we are repeating the same history, even though we were supposed not to, shows that we, humans, want extinction, which is terrifying because we should strive for change, but instead we want to go full circle and then it will probably happen again that we should not repeat it X events and repeat them as Y

We are selfish, we play with human life and then pretend that we care about it, we destroy the planet and exterminate endangered species, because after all, "Humans are better than animals", when animals rarely kill for entertainment

Poles and Israelis, you fucking deserve each other

[charlie-rain-0]

normally i don't talk too much about my origins on my account but i have a correction to make.

i am algerian (more precisely french-algerian even if here i will only speak about algeria)

i also specify that i am amazigh, i am not arab, i am part of the indigenous people of the region (well the situation is more complicated but frankly, i am a little lazy to explain to western people the complexity of ethnic groups in north africa but even if i am not theoretically one, it does not bother me to be considered as one (and in a certain way, i am by a part of my culture even if it is mainly amazigh).

i often see posts like this from westerners (who have no idea what north africa is).

i will explain why this is complete bullshit and why it is racist and islamophobic.

first of all, anyone who has ever been to north africa knows that the vast majority of veiled women wear the classic hijab. of our generation (i say our generation when talking about generation z) there are quite a few women who do not wear one.

after trying to talk about traditional outfit here there are two huge mistakes. already this outfit wanting to be a traditional outfit is not at all. I explain.

given the patterns it surely wants to be a traditional amazigh outfit (therefore my people) except that our outfits do not even really resemble that (i vaguely have the impression of being confronted with a poor quality outfit or for a disguise of what our traditional outfit is).

our traditional outfits are often very modest, even if the veil does not conform to the hijab, amazigh women have covered their hair for generations. this is normal, it is literally a religious commandment.

i really don't see why westerners often have a problem with wanting or liking to dress modestly. even though i'm non-binary, i always dress very modestly. men also have rules of modesty in islam, so in most muslim countries, men and women are dressed according to codes that mean they are often covered.

(it would never occur to me to go out with a short sleeved t-shirt or with shorts or a short skirt. i am always covered no matter what country I am in)

I have many photos of my great grandmother who wears her hair covered by a turban. this is the case for almost all amazigh women of her generation and the generation after. if you come across an amazigh granny in north africa, it is very likely that she will be wearing a turban.

if we look a little at the history of algeria, we learn that during french colonization, the french government organized “unveiling” sessions where algerian women were forced to remove their veils in public. the french government did this to humiliate and subjugate women; it was an extremely violent act for them.

but that's not all. even if the idiot who made this post (sorry for my vocabulary) tried unsuccessfully to take a traditional amazigh outfit (which is hideous, i personally feel insulted. i grew up as a trans person assigned girl at birth, wearing magnificent kabyle dresses and dreaming of having beautiful amazigh outfits covered in silver jewelry. so seeing an aliexpress dress and not at all traditional revolts me, especially for a person who claims to talk about MY culture without knowing a minimum of it)

that's not all, in algeria the amazigh are an ethnic minority and 80% of the population are arabs from the maghreb (maghreb literally means arab from this area). and among the maghrebis, the traditional dress of women looks like this:

(modern version)

(real traditional version)

and yes, it is also an integral veil. and whether you like it or not, it is the traditional dress of most algerians, even if in fact, the hijab (which is much less covering) is worn more often

well i hope i explained correctly to the european that we should not speak for us. as an algerian person (trans but assigned female at birth) i would like to ask you to shut your mouth and educate yourself before talking about our bodies, the bodies of our sisters, our mothers, and our female ancestors. and above all to stop being stupid, racist and islamophobic people.

ps/ ethnic origin in the maghreb is a permanent mix. north african arabs also have an amazigh part (and this is also often the case the other way around)

ps2/being arab doesn't really mean anything scientifically. being arab can mean living in or coming from an arab country (which would make me an arab), speaking arabic, or having an arab culture. i mean, genetically most arabs are only partly arab.

ps3/ amazigh or berber (which is a pejorative term, which i hate but which is used a lot in the west) is a group of indigenous peoples of north africa. there is a great variety of people who are all very different but who share part of their culture and their language (the amazigh have languages ​​of origin that are not arabic)

ps4/ i am neither pan-africanist nor pan-arabist, i am for a unity of the two .i am for a union of peoples, and in particular non-western peoples. (especially since the concept of state as we understand it in the west is a colonial legacy for most of our peoples. north africa is in its entirety my country, i would even say that all of SWANA is my « country ». i am at home when i am in any country in this area)

ps5/ i made it clear that i was queer in this post and if anyone here has a problem with me being queer and algerian. let that person go choke on a ball of taasbante. seriously, you can keep your shitty pink washing.

ps6/ i would end with a little "tahia falestine" but in kabyle we say rather : ⴼⴰⵍⴻⵙⵟⵉⵏ ⵜⵉⵍⴻⵍⵍⵉⵜ

[batwynn]

I’ve gotten a few insistent anons lately demanding I state my thoughts and opinions on the current and past history of Palestine on this blog. (You can tell they don’t follow my more personal side blog, I guess.) On the one hand, I do understand people wanting to know that someone they follow has similar opinions on severely important things like this. But on the other hand, most of the asks have that certain… tone that gives me the feeling that they are more interested in ‘catching’ me in something, than any actual concern over my politics or the actual people involved. They’re worded in a way that is very immature—in a way that leaves very little room for anything other than the exact statements parroted back to them that they expect. Which I can’t do. One, because I can’t read their minds to say exactly what they want me to say. Two, because I’m an entire person with a whole life that they know nothing about—something that comes with all the flaws of being a human person with my own history and education based on where I lived and who I knew. And three, because I don’t want to parrot someone else’s words to appease a random person I don’t know. And the thing is, I’ve had this conversation already with nearly everyone in my life. I’ve gone over it at least a dozen times with friends and family from all walks of life. Some conversations were harder than others. All of them were hard. Partially because what is happening is hard to talk about, and partially because I don’t really know what to say. What do I say that changes anything? What do I say that isn’t speaking over someone who is directly affected? What do I say that won’t be misinterpreted by someone willingly misinterpreting/looking for a fight? What can I say that doesn’t hurt anyone at all? Because someone out there will always be hurt, no matter how carefully I try to word things. And I have tried. I’ve written this post 80+ times for months now. I’ve read other’s words and found parts that spoke to me and for me very well, but then have that certain edge that goes into the harm territory. Some lean into Zionism, some lean into antisemitism. Some are just outright racist, some are full on fascist. And that’s really the entirety of it. I just don’t want people to be hurt anymore. So to answer your questions, anon:

I don’t know what the right thing to say is and no matter how careful I am, it will never be correct enough for you. I am angry and horrified at the harm that has been done over many years to the Palestinian people. None of my words can really summarize that history, or what is happening to them right now. Every single day I learn something new, and every single day it is someone doing irreparable harm to innocent people. I am disgusted by the never ending terrorism and harm done by people who think that killing innocents is a worthy way to get them what they want. And that goes for anyone who does this, including but not limited to the Hamas, the Israeli army, or my very own colonizing country. I am alarmed at how black and white people are treating this, and how no consideration is allowed for those who fall between the cracks or who dont follow their strict narrative. That people forget that Jewish Palestinian people exist when they go on their rants, or what people from every ‘side’ or corner of the world can want the end of the harm. That people have hatred for Jewish and Muslim people with no regards to who they actually are and what they believe. That there are so many who support Palestinian freedom, and then parrot outright fascist talking points. That many come to support their Jewish friends, but then say that Palestinian children deserve to die because _____. So, no. There is nothing I can say that really matters. Because no matter what I say someone out there will twist my words, or misunderstand, or tell me that I’m supporting something I don’t support. Because no matter what I say, I just can’t write the right words on fucking Tumblr to stop the harm from being done.

[mylight-png]

This is going to be a little different from my usual posts, but here I go anyways.

It is rare, especially now, for online content to make me really and truly happy. But today I saw something that both made me really happy and also made me think.

I was scrolling through TikTok and came across multiple videos of the same kind. A woman wearing a hijab was finding other Muslim women and was helping them try on a hijab for the first time. These videos brought me so much joy. The hijabi woman's gestures were so kind and loving, she seemed almost like an older sister to the other women. The care with which she helped them put on the hijab was so sweet. And then there was the reaction of the women to wearing a hijab for the first time. There were before and after shots, and every single time, the "after" photos of them in the hijab were so happy. It was so pure to see women finding joy in dressing in a way that brought them comfortable.

But even more interestingly, it was a joy I recognized. The sisterly and caring gestures of the more experienced hijabi were familiar too.

The joy I saw in the "after" photos was reminiscent of my emotions when I first intentionally dressed tznuis (Jewish modesty). It was recent, and I felt so comfortable and safe in the clothes I was wearing, and I recognized that comfort in the faces of the women in the videos.

The sweet and caring gestures of the experienced hijabi reminded me a bit of my interactions with rebbetzins and other older religious women in various communities. They're always so sweet and kind (in my experience of course), and I noticed that they frequently try to connect through touch. You know, putting a hand on my shoulder or elbow. Hugs, of course. Using those gestures to make people feel heard and listened to.

And that made me think. We are so much more similar than the media gives us credit for. In fact, it reminded me of an interaction I had with a classmate just last week.

In one of my classes, we were talking about cultural traditions, and we were supposed to pair up and discuss family traditions we have. I mentioned that I love celebrating New Year's because my family doesn't celebrate Christmas, but due to them coming to the US from ex-USSR countries, they brought over similar yet secular and unique traditions for New Year's.

The girl I ended up pairing up with mentioned that she also didn't celebrate Christmas, because she was Muslim, and then she started talking about what her family does for Ramadan.

We ended up having a really nice discussion, connecting over having to fast for holidays, being surrounded by a majority Christian world, and other things we had in common.

And at the very beginning of the year, a Jewish friend of mine and I were complaining to each other about how lame it was that there were only two cheese pizzas at the event, and the rest were all pepperoni (and therefore not kosher), which led into a discussion of accommodating dietary restrictions. We unintentionally ended up sitting next to a few Muslim girls who heard our conversation and joined in, and we had the fun experience of bonding over the pork-obsessed world we all live in.

So yeah. We're actually not as different as the media and politicians make us look.

This is why, as much as I try to advocate about antisemitism, I still try to call out Islamaphobia in my day-to-day life.

There really isn't an excuse for hating an entire group. No excuse for awful and slanderous generalizations, which I've seen made about both us and Muslims. Just as antisemitism shouldn't have any place in these discussions, neither does Islamaphobia.

In fact, I think it would be amazing if we could set aside our differences and unite on this issue.

I know we may feel adversely towards each other in regards to the Israel-Hamas war and our views on it. And I'm not going to force anyone to agree/disagree on all the same things about it. Both sides are hurt. Both sides are accusing each other of genocide, and neither one (majority, I know extremist views exist on both sides, that's not who I am talking about here) actually hates all of the other side to the point of wanting to kill each other.

Yes, we disagree. Yes, our disagreement right now is serious and valid. But there is something we can, I hope, agree upon, and that's the fact that neither side of what's happening should employ Islamaphobic/Antisemitic rhetoric.

So here's a summary of what I'm trying to say:

We aren't as different as we are portrayed to be. We aren't "natural enemies" or whatever people think. We are all human, and we should all be united in the fact that generalized hate has no place on either side.

Both Antisemitism and Islamaphobia are rising right now. We may not see eye to eye on everything, but we are all human, and we should all do our part in dealing with that rise in hate. Not contribute to it.

...

Even though I am trying to speak against hate and division right now, I am certain that I'm probably going to receive at least a few hateful or negative responses to this. But you know what?

I don't really care anymore. Those hateful people are not anyone I could ever change or convince. So I'm going to try and remind myself to pick my battles and not waste energy on pointless arguments. Hateful responses to this post will be blocked and deleted.

However, Muslims of Tumblr, if I did say anything culturally problematic or inaccurate (for example, if the term "hijabi" or "experienced" in regards to being a hijabi is somehow a problem) (or like if comparing wearing a hijab at all to tznuis clothing is an issue) please let me know so I can fix it! I tried to not be culturally insensitive but I don't really know all that much so please do let me know!

...

[sirenofthegreenbanks]

there are already so many posts about palestine, so im gonna make one about israel. the recent attack from the 7. october is the first genocidial attack on jews of this degree since the holocaust. i cant speak about other countries but in germany things are reverting back to nazi times, with david stars painted on front doors of jews and jewish synagogues and kindergartens being closed down or swept empty because the people are terrified. antisemites and the far-right extremist scene is emboldened and empowered by this attack. they look at everyone‘s reaction very closely and at least for my country, ppl are insanely silent about it, which is like a legitimation of their views and their actions. i want ppl to remember that! there should be more space in this anti-genocidial activism than there seems to be currently, one that includes jews. i dont find it funny at all that my timeline, if politics cross it, and that most posts, if i go to the tags, talk about the settler colonialism and the attempted genocide by israel on palestine, but not about the baked-in antisemitism and the degree of terror and severity this recent event has. there are gonna be long-lasting consequences on all sides and its not gonna be fun, there has to be a way to talk about all of it, all human lives lost, all genocides happening and attempted, without letting one fall under the bus because its easier and fits the narrative of the modern justice warrior. years ago they said that this is a fight of anti-colonialism and anti-genocide, not jews vs muslims, in the topic of israel and palestine, but by choosing to not mention one and focusing exclusively on the other now u make it into one. what im seeing currently is a lot of performative activism and one-sided focus that does not help anyone at all save for those profitting from this situation, which are the antisemites, the nazis and the far-right extremists, the hamas and everyone else in league with them. please think about this for a minute and be conscious of whom u are unintentionally aiding

[freedom-in-truth]

Are they LYING to us? CIA spy tells all

Uploaded Oct 28. Transcript below.

Spoiler, yes the US Gov lies to you. 😱

Added [my edits] to the transcript in square commas.

Biden quote: “Terrorist group Hamas unleashed pure unadulterated evil in the world…”

Now, let’s talk about Hamas for a moment, because President Biden just called them a terrorist group. Let’s be honest about Hamas. They have been labelled a terrorist group by less than 12 countries in the world.

The vast majority of the world, including The UN, does not consider Hamas a terrorist group.

Instead they consider Hamas to be a political party; a force and the legislative body of the Gaza Strip, elected democratically and in power since 2007.

So, Hamas, whether we like to admit it or not, has a militant wing, but they are also a recognised political party inside the Gaza Strip. They were voted into power. They have an established leader and a hierarchy. 

And, even worse, they are a political party without any kind of citizenship, because Palestinians (who they represent) aren’t a recognised country [thanks to colonialism]. So, what that means is that Palestine and Hamas are politically accepted by the majority of the world. It’s really only the United States, and US allies Paraguay and the European Union that see Hamas as an actual terrorist organisation. And, of course, Israel as well.

The rest of the world sees Hamas as a political group.

A political group without a country and, importantly, without a military to defend itself.

So, I want to make sure that you understand that when President Biden says that Hamas is a terrorist organisation, he’s really talking from an American point of view in the eyes of Americans and in the eyes of the Israelis.

Hamas is a terrorist group but, to be fair, in the eyes of Iran the US military is a terrorist group. So it’s all about perspective on this one.

[I can assure you! it's not just Iran who view the US military as a terrorist group!! Plenty of countries do as well!]

Biden quote: “Sadly the Jewish people know perhaps better than anyone that there is no limit to the depravity of people when they want to inflict pain on others…”

Now, this is another thing that I think is important, because the President just said ‘the Jewish people’. Hamas exists for one reason; they were created in 1987, specifically to prevent and destroy Israel, because Israel was oppressing the Palestinian people.

It was the oppression of Israel against Palestine that was the birthplace for Hamas. Let’s not get the order of actions confused here. Hamas did not exist prior to 1987.

[Israel first began expelling Palestinians in the late 1940s, look up 1948 Nakba.]

The ongoing pressure and conflict between Israelis and Palestinians [in other words, the ethnic cleansing of indigenous people, Palestinians, by Israelis] in the country of Israel, and the marginalisation, oppression, discrimination that they were putting onto the Muslim people there is really what led to the birth of Hamas, as a way of fighting back against Israeli oppression.

[Please note: Palestinians are a mix of faith. While predominantly Muslim, Palestinian Christians and Palestinian Jews also exist, and are also oppressed by Israel. Plenty of footage has been online of Israeli crimes against all three religious groups.]

Hamas is targeting only Israel, not Jews. There’s a big difference between an Israeli and a Jew.

[Plenty of Jewish people do not support the settler state of Isael. Plenty of Jewish people do not condone ethnic cleansing in their name. Being Jewish is not centered around colonizing other countries.]

The president here said that Jews are the target, and that is not accurate. Israel is the target, the country of Israel. Hamas doesn’t care whether Israel is full of Christians, Jews, or other Muslims, if it’s oppressing Palestinians, if it’s depriving the Palestinians of a homeland, then Hamas is there to fight and counteract it.

Outside of Israel, the state of Israel, Hamas doesn’t really exist, which is why the rest of the world does not see them as a terrorist group.

Interestingly, it is also the reason that the United States does label them as a terrorist group, because [the US] is trying to show support for Israel [the US sends up to $4 billion dollars annually to fund Israel’s military, to ‘fight’ a people without a state and without a military, FYI], so I don’t think Hamas is targeting Jews. They are not. 

Hamas is in a very clear fight for survival of the Palestinian people in their own [indigenous country], within the landmass that is [currently] known as Israel. 

Biden quote: “I also spoke with President Abbas, the Palestinian Authority president…”

Abbas the Palestinian Authority President is not the recognised leader in the Gaza Strip. He is the recognised leader in the West Bank, but not the Gaza Strip. They have two very different forms of government.

So, what the president is saying here without saying it, is that he is speaking to the Palestinian Authority who does not represent the actual body of victims who are being attacked right now.

Biden quote: “The United States remains committed to the Palestinian people’s right and dignity to self-determination…”

This is a very important lie of omission here.

The president just said that he reiterated that American support to Palestinians is there for their right to dignity and self-determination. What he did not say is that they have any right to self-preservation, or to protect themselves.

The president has said that Israel has a right to protect itself. He is not giving the same permission to the Palestinian people. That is an important point in this conversation.

At no point during this address will you hear the president say that the Palestinians have any right to protect or defend themselves. He does not acknowledge them as a group of people. He does not acknowledge them as an oppressed people within the lands of Israel, and that is a sad and frustrating thing.

It’s what’s known as a lie of omission; he is not telling you the total truth. The total truth being that the United States does not actually support the Palestinian people in their fight against Israel. [Reminder: the USA sends up to $4 billion annually to arm Israel.]

(More under the cut)

Biden quote: “The assault on Israel echoes nearly twenty months of war, tragedy, and brutality inflicted on the people of Ukraine…”

So, here the president is starting to make a transition to compare what’s happening in Israel to what’s happening in Ukraine.

It’s important to me that you understand that this is a lie of influence.

The president is trying to make you believe that there’s a connection between what’s happening in Ukraine and what’s happening in Israel. They are two completely different types of conflict.

In Ukraine, you see an outside nation state [Russia] invading another independent sovereign nation state. That’s not what’s happening in Israel. In Israel you have an oppressed [indigenous] group that is launching an attack against its oppressor, and then you have the oppressor responding and going well above and beyond in terms of capability and response to the original attack. So they cannot be compared, even though in this address you’ll see that he continues to make comparisons to the two in a plea to the American people to support American interests in both conflicts.

While I am all for American interests and I understand that there is a great deal at play, at stake here, for the United States [$4 billion annually, money that could’ve been used on American healthcare), I want to make sure that we highlight this lie of influence because this is not actually an accurate statement. It does not reflect what’s happening in Ukraine in any way. It’s a separate conflict carried out for separate reasons in a different way.

[Again, this is basic facts and history summarised from an American perspective, and yet we are at a point in the misinformation campaign from the Biden administration that these basic factd and corrections to Biden's lies NEED to be said. So please share this.]

[hero-israel]

In defense of anti-Israel people, it doesn't seem the fairest to consider any of their political art to be antisemitic for showing the Star of David in a negative light (such as censoring, breaking, being stabbed, etc) when that *is* the only symbol for the State (save for stripes, which I've seen represented too but less). How else are they supposed to criticize it visually? You can only use Netanyahu as a strawman so many times. The institutional and historical issues are more extensive than him or anyone like him. The recent branding with the Star of David of a Palestinian by an Israeli cop (assuming that's true, which looks like it as far as I can tell) shows the symbol can be used for evil. We should maybe make some exceptions to what we might otherwise consider antisemitic. I'm reminded of a graphic novel I read called "Dictatorship: It's Easier Than You Think", which mostly sarcastically criticized and compared various historical regimes. I felt it was a little too biased in a lot of ways, but it made one point I find relevant here. It said that populist ideologies create symbols that represent large swathes of marginalized people so if you criticize that ideology you can be framed for being prejudiced. It talked about how the communist/Soviet symbol was hammer and sickle, representing workers, so if you opposed communism/Soviet Union/etc., they could just say you were classist. (I personally have more sympathy for communism/Soviet Union so I somewhat disagree but I believe you said you're more anti-communist than I am so this might be more agreeable to you). To pull this back to my main point, maybe it isn't fair to have a historically violent nation be able to always have the ability to attribute criticism of it to one of the world's oldest bigotries? Don't get me wrong, I am a Zionist and I do think there's value in Israel asserting itself as Jewish and representing Jews. Enough Jews get associated with Israel by antisemites when they have no affiliation with it or even oppose it, so there's not much real value in trying to separate. And I do believe criticism of Israel and Zionism crosses over into antisemitism more than critics would like to admit. But I'm just making a point about iconography here. I half-wish that Israel went with one of the earlier flag designs of the Menorah or Lion so iconography could be more clear-cut. But maybe it shouldn't be.

A few thoughts on this:

The menorah would be functionally identical to the Magen David in terms of potentially causing confusion / inspiring hate from critique. The lion just isn't as good, though YMMV

It isn't hard for cartoonists to caricature political leaders like Netanyahu, it is in fact their job, if you can call it that.

if someone can draw a Magen David, they can draw it in blue and put in the stripes to remove all doubt that they mean the modern political entity and not the human ethnic group / religion

I don't recall seeing as much specifically blood- and killing-oriented imagery around Muslim crescents. The flag of Pakistan has the crescent on it, people making a cartoon criticizing Pakistan would hopefully not leap to showing the crescent as a knife beheading someone

All things are not equal and the political artists just have to cope with that and work a little harder. It does make a difference that Jews are a persecuted, frequently-genocided group controlling such a tiny land area. If the hammer-and-sickle was only used as the flag symbol of North Korea, which was the only Korean country, and most ethnic Koreans lived there after having been wiped out everywhere else, maybe people would have to be more careful with how they negatively portrayed that symbol.

to reiterate point 1 - it is good that artists and activists should be expected to work hard to avoid bigotry in their critiques

[boycterium]

I have been hijabi since I was 13, I have been verbally, and were threatened to be physically abused for not praying, when I was in kindergarten a teacher went on and on about how islam is pro women because it forbid the people of arab peninsula from burying toddlers who were coercively assigned female at birth alive and that women were necessary because humans "can't reproduce with just men alone" I could make you a list of violently misogynistic religious texts off the top of my head in five minutes, random girls come up to me in public to tell me to not sit cross legged in public because "there are boys here", random girls allow themselves to fix my very "proper" hijab if it accidentally exposed my neck for a nanosecond, imagine a fucking stranger coming out of nowhere to touch your neck and pull on your clothes. Some of my classmates from elementary and middle school got engaged and married and dropped out of education and not many people found it questionable to ruin a child's life like this, I constantly hear news of women and girls getting murdered by their families, husbands, or random strangers and of course you do too, but not to the same extent. I used to practice conversion therapy tactics on myself and used to wish my family would somehow find out that I'm queer and send me to conversion therapy so that i may be "saved".

People online are allowed to joke about and criticise christianity in a way that they'd have an ex muslims's head on a pike for. People online who weren't raised muslim, or more correctly weren't raised in a muslim country, have barely glued-together tolerance towards muslim minorities where they are so they get extremely defensive when anyone attempts to criticise islam because they want to prove to themselves that they are Good People and are afraid the little tolerance they built will crumble if they were asked to recognise religion as harmful. Ex muslims talking about their lived experiences are faced with disbelief and violence. I look up "ex muslim" on tumblr and it's all radical feminists. I couldn't bring myself to talk about it myself because what if some dumbfuck whitie who follows me happened to have no knowledge on islam except what their racist grandfather once said in a family gathering will go "oh so this means I'm allowed to murder random muslims/Arabs/Brown people in my state?". Atheism is violently punished irl and in online spaces but in supposedly progressive online spaces people will act as if someone being politically against religion is worse than them being prone to getting shunned, abused, denied healthcare, and possibly murdered for being atheists or just not being religious enough. Of course you need to defend religion and people's right to be religious because nobody else will try to defend the violently enforced societal norm /s

[ednav]

I don’t like to talk about politics here. But I see so many posts about the war in Israel/Palestine right now, and I cannot help saying my bit. It’s going to be long (read up until the end, or just skip) and messy and very personal. It’s not meant to be an essay that analyses all aspects of the situation. It comes after one of the worst months of my life—please, be kind. I’ve been on this earth for almost half a century, and it’s been one of the worst months of my life.

[If you prefer not to read at all, just skip. No harm done.]

I have both Muslim and Jewish friends in the Europe and in the US. Some of them wear a hijab, some of them wear a kippah. Every morning I check that they didn’t get beaten up because dividing the world into “good guys” / “bad guys” and releasing your frustration on someone who looks like “the bad guys” is an easy way to feel in control when you’re scared.

And now, the unpopular bit: I have Jewish Israeli friends. Every morning I check they came out alive from the bomb shelter. Hamas is still firing rockets—a lot of rockets—on both Tel Aviv and Jerusalem. I wait for them tell me if another disfigured body has been identified as a friend whom they thought that had “just” been kidnapped.

One of these friends goes to the peace protests in Tel Aviv, so I have to check that he didn’t get beaten up by the police either.

(Dear US people: identifying Israel with Netanyahu is like assuming all of you are MAGA Republicans. Worse, actually, because Israel is not a two-party system—more like a twenty-party system—and it’s a mess. Decolonise your mind from assuming that every country works like the US.)

Some of my friends are Mizrahi. Their great-grandparents had to find refuge in the relative safety of Israel after being expelled by another country in that region—a place where they cannot go back to. Not-very-fun fact: they’re also dark-skinned enough to get “randomly checked” every time they get on a plane, unless there’s a woman wearing a hijab or a chador on the same flight. It’s not as simple as European or US colonialism.

(Once again: stop making it all about you. The world is more complex than your country. Especially if your country is less than 250 years old and hasn’t had a battle on its soil in more than 130 years.)

I don’t know anyone in Palestine, so I can’t say what it’s like to have friends on that side of the border. I imagine it’s even worse, given that most people there don’t have shelters, nor actual freedom to protest against their government, at least in the Gaza strip.

Anyway: I don’t wish what I’ve been through in the last month on my worse enemy. And I’m just a friend of some people who are not in the worst possible situation. I know that I cannot even begin to know what it must be like for Jewish, Muslim, Israeli and Palestinian people.

And now, let me tell you about a history book that might have saved the world. I’ve been thinking about it a lot.

It’s a bit outdated, but it’s still quite good, and the writing is simply brilliant. It’s called The Guns of August, and it’s about the first month of WWI. Just the first month, and how we got there. How stubbornness, pride, rhetoric, and even “rationality”, led to a massacre that did nothing but cause another massacre less than a generation later. It was written by a woman, Barbara Tuchman, in 1962. Later that year, during the Cuban Missile Crisis, President John F Kennedy gave it to read to all the generals in the US Army. The message was simple: escalation leads to disaster. Sometimes you have to compromise, accept losses and even a certain degree of “unfair”, rather than getting into a full-blown war.

Now, I’m not a pacifist. I know that some wars are the lesser evil. I have relatives who fought in the Resistance. They were proud of having risked their lives. They were proud of living in a country with free elections—even if fascists-in-all-but-name could get elected—and at peace. But they were not proud of having killed people whose children grew up as orphans.

I see a lot of people, especially younger people, who want Pure Justice. Bad people must be eliminated, good people must triumph, no excuses.

The thing is—there are no completely good people, nor completely bad people. There are people. Often scared and more traumatised than you can possibly imagine.

There are people who must pay for their crimes. There are people who will, and some who won’t. Just ask anyone who survived a war, or a time of almost-civil-war like the Troubles in the UK/Ireland or the terrorism of the 1970s In Europe—that’s something we’ve all seen. (I say “we” because I’m old enough to remember the 1980s. They sucked, trust me.)

The problem is: the more you lose sight of the common humanity of everyone involved, the more you escalate the tension, the more there will be people who are going to pay for crimes they haven’t committed. And the more I see of this world, the more I believe that if there’s one side it’s just fighting for, it’s theirs.

As I said—it’s messy. And human beings are precious, but fragile. Please, be kind.

[kendrixtermina]

De-Rationalization & De-Politization of Palestinian Resistance

Notice how in mainstream media you almost never hear WHY the resistance attack happened. You just hear generic stuff about how they're "muslim extremists" or "want to kill all jews", but never their own stated reasons & demands.

Now you might think that the palestinian resistance went too far in their Methods - certainly, several hundred innocents were killed & while they made an effort not to make it harder than necessary on the hostages, being kidnapped is traumatizing by itself - the leaked convos with Netanyahu show that some captives definitely suffered..

But their basic demands as stated by themselves (that you are never told about by much of the media) are:

stop occupying us

release mistreated prisoners held on spurious charges

don't heckle people who want to pray in Al-Aqsa (this being what started this "round" of fighting)

This is all stuff that Israel should do ANYWAY. These are all things human rights orgs and/or the UN have been calling for for YEARS.

And seeing as nothing happened despite human rights orgs complaining, is it so strange ppl decided to take it in their own hands? Especially after we've seen how little political will there is to use any leverage to restrain Israel.

I believe strongly that you can only judge individuals by what they can influence, so I will not ever call the death or kidnapping of random israeli civilians 'glorious' or 'deserved' or indulge in 'nobody is innocent' talk cause that's a convevient simplification to get rid of cognitive dissonance. War is always ugly, innocents always get caught up, that's why it should only be the last resort.

However, he who makes peaceful reform impossible makes violent uprising inevitable. It's not a question of moralizing, it's cause & effect, human nature. You may drive out nature with the pitchfork but it always stubbornly returns. Humans don't like to be slaves. No amount of moralizing or repression will change this.

So when I see how the media isn't telling us why they are doing this & instead telling us that they're just irrational extremists or pointing to some long disavowed document from the 80s when they were first founded & more extreme, I see how denying the opponent's rationality obscures a correct understanding of the situation.

The deaths of Israeli civilians shouldn't have happened. But how could they realistically have been prevented? If you don't see Palestinians as rational, and think they're just killing for killing's sake, you may think the answer is more repression.

But if you acknowledge the other side's rationality, you realize that violence is dangerous to the one doing it as well. Aside from hardcore ideologues, most people would not choose violence if they had other options.

But Israel has systematically cut those off: Peaceful protesters are shot, activists get arrested, strikes & boycotts are met with slander & lawfare, diplomacy is met with intransigence...

If you see Palestinians as having reason & not being any more likely to use violence than anyone else, the blame is obviously with those who cut off all peaceful means! (and besides did a piss poor job guarding their own citizens, pulling the army to the west bank & shooting at their own ppl)

There is this saying in my country that when someone's being sanctimonious they have "rented morality for themselves" (leaving only immorality for the opponent) but what we're seeing here, much more, is ppl acting like they rented rationality for themselves.

Hence all this propaganda to portray them as an irrational horse doing gratuitous mass rape/executions instead of a competent army that, while not perfect, looks way more disciplined & sophisticated than the Israelis RN.

And of course, if they "just hate us cause they hate us", that makes it easier to justify draconic measures because there is no cause that be fixed.

Because they're scared that if ppl heard their reasoning & demands, they would maybe agree with their goals if not their methods.

Notice also that it's the same de-rationalizing as you would see with an abuser: The girlfriend just bitches cause she's a bitch, the children just contradict cause they want to contradict... not because their feelings are hurt because of abuse.

I think thinking & reason are just as fundamental to humanity as feeling & sensitivity, & that to portray them as unthinking is just as awful as to deny ppl's suffering or humanity in an emotional sense.

And yes, there's an obvious parallel to how post 9/11 they stressed the attackers' religion (encouraging persecution of muslims worlwide) to detract from their political goals. They were angry about american meddling in the cold war. Again this isn't justifying their deeds, this is just cause & effect. But then what did they do? Yet more meddling & destabilizing. The most counterproductive possible thing. & in the end they got Bin Laden with spy cameras and a swat team. The war did nothing to catch him. He wasn't even in Afghanistan.

Like even if we grant for argument's sake that Hamas are unambiguous baddies, you would, idk, get the USA to use leverage to make Qatar extradite their leaders and put them on trial, or catch them with police, not mass murder civilians.

[gentil-minou]

(Same anon who talked about having a Jewish friend)

Actually, I've already seen a bunch of the video explanations and looked things up before sending the last ask in, and yeah, I'm pretty convinced the Palestinians got a raw deal. It looks like the British came in, took over Palestine, then decided to kill two birds with one stone and try to move all the Jews out of their country and into the area they were trying to establish as Israel, while intimidating or outright forcing Palestinians into leaving their own homes in order to make room.

And then after repelling the attack from all the surrounding countries trying to get rid of Israel (which yeah, that uh. That would also have led to a massive tragedy), Israel took over a bunch of territory beyond what they'd been assigned (without any Palestinian input whatsoever), and claimed it as spoils of war or something. And it's occupied areas even beyond that, and regularly bombed Gaza like. A Lot.

Honestly, my biggest source of difficulty is that, well. I DO know people who are Jewish and have family in Israel, and are pro-Israel and arguing all the usual Israeli talking points, and are scared right now. And I can't really say that they shouldn't be afraid for themselves and their friends and family either, even though from what I've seen with my research, Palestinians seem to have been dealt a rawer hand. I'm not sure what to say to them, except generally adopting one of the more neutral stances that focuses on the horrors this conflict has inflicted on everyone involved, like what Rick Riordan said in a recent blog post.

I am also quite aware that when anyone, myself included, tries to speak about this issue, the reader is waiting to pounce, thinking, “Yes, but whose side are you on?” That is exactly the wrong question. If there are two sides to this issue, those sides are not Palestinian/Israeli or Muslim/Jewish. The two sides are humanitarian and dehumanizing. Dehumanizing has a long evil history. It is appealing and easy to buy into, because humans are tribal animals. We are hardwired to think in terms of ‘us’ versus ‘them.’  We are the real humans, the good guys, the ones with God on our side. Those other people are evil monsters who don’t deserve empathy. Hate mongers have thrived on dehumanizing for as long as there have been humans. It provides them with a purpose, a way to rally support, power, and scapegoats. It is  easy to point to atrocities committed by our enemies, while justifying or minimizing the atrocities committed by ourselves or our allies.

Humanitarianism is a much harder sell. It requires us to empathize, to see other groups of people as equally deserving of dignity and quality of life. It requires not always putting ourselves and our needs first. But in the long run, humanitarianism is our only hope. If violence could end violence, if we could put an end to “those other people” once and for all, human history would read very differently than it does.

So yes, I am appalled by the Hamas attacks on Israeli civilians. I am appalled by the suffering of Palestinian civilians in Gaza. Both things can be true. Both things must be true. My thoughts are with all the people who have died, who have lost loved ones, who have had their worlds and their lives shattered, especially the children. More death and violence will not break this cycle, which has been going on for generations. There is no military solution. Even since I first wrote the post, only twenty-four hours ago, the Israeli government’s brutal retaliation against the entire population of Gaza has reached genocidal proportions. This is not only an atrocity. It is folly. Answering misery with misery only creates more fertile ground for extremism, dehumanizing the “other side,” letting hate mongers thrive, stay in power, and reduce us all to our most monstrous impulses. The only real solution is treating each other like equally worthy human beings, and negotiating a peace that allows all parties a chance to live in security and dignity, with hopes for a future that does not include bombs and rockets and gunfire. This means security and support for Israel, yes. It also means a secure Palestine which is allowed to get the international aid and recognition it needs to build a viable state.

Do I think that will happen? Unfortunately, no. Humans are simply too selfish, too ready to blame “the other” for all their problems, too ready to dehumanize, though I also believe, perhaps paradoxically, that most people just want to live their lives in peace and have a chance for their children to have a brighter future. The problem is when we don’t allow other people to have those same hopes and dreams — when it becomes a false choice of us versus them.

What can I do? I will continue to write books that I hope will give young readers some joy. I will resist the urge to demonize entire groups of people. I will call for less violence, not more violence. And when asked whose side I am on, I will tell you I am on the side of humanitarianism.

I'm not sure whether you have a better stance to take when it comes to talking to friends who have close ties to the Israeli side of this conflict, who are afraid for themselves and their family. Because I can't say they're wrong to be afraid and upset, but also there needs to be recognition of what Palestinians have gone through as well. I'm not sure whether you have Jewish friends who support Israel who you've talked about this with, but if you do, how do you handle that?

To be frank, I wish I had the answers for your question but I don't right now. The majority of people in my life are either Pro-Palestine or refuse to talk about the situation saying it's too stressful, which is its own frustration and which I push back on by still talking about it.

The people in my life that are Pro-Israel are at work, which is difficult considering the ethics in this situation are all over the place. How do I support an Israeli client calling for the genocide of an entire race? How do I, as their therapist, validate something that I find so morally repugnant I feel sick to my stomach before every session. How do I deal with working at an organization devoted to helping kids with their mental health when right now one of the most traumatic incidences the world has ever seen is happening right this second?

My workplace has apparently chosen silence and not talking about any of this as its strategy, and I don't know how to navigate it. Do I leave my job and the kids I work with to uphold my morals? Do I stay to help the kids I wanted to support even though they support something I fine reprehensible? Do I ignore it like my workplace does and stay for the kids I can help, where I comparmentalize everything thats been happening so I can help them even though their problems are so small? Do I stay even though every second of silence and refusal to recognize the very real genocide happening right now kills me every single day? I haven't worked it out yet. I don't know how to balance psychology ethics with my own ethics, and I think that's it's own issue.

So I don't have the answers here. I'm much better talking about these things online than I am in person. I have a better reach online than I do in person, which is why I do it so much here. If I had to confront a Pro-Israeli family/friend I know myself and I know I would cry and get angry and I don't know what I would do after that.

So for that, I'd say you're doing better than I am Anon.

Something I have considered though is where do I draw the line for what makes someone a friend or person I want to keep in my life.

And to me, a South Asian woman with an Arabic name from a Muslim family who grew up under the shadow of Post-9/11 Islamophobia in NYC and has devoted her life to working with kids who have trauma, depression, and anxiety, I think I am justified in taking it personally and with great offence if someone is saying the genocide of people I relate to heavily is okay. I think I as a person as a human being can draw the line when I need to.

And I think what gets me is I will talk about it. I refuse to stop.

[everything-is-crab]

Idk why some Hindu women fall for the lies of Hindu men.

I mean I get why because like I said I have been there and I was so far gone I literally believed in "love jihad".

What surprised me even more was that this lady is a radfem.

Radfems more than anyone should understand male dominance in all communities.

Just because you see radicalized Muslim men committing atrocities against Hindu women doesn't mean that Islam is the only shit religion but Hinduism somehow is not or that Hindu men don't do the same shit to Muslim women.

People here need to realize this issue is very complex due to our history and demographics (Muslim people are the minority but they literally ruled over us centuries ago).

This isn't an issue like racism in the US where white people are undeniably the oppressors.

This is a religious conflict that has been alive for a long long time and its condition hasn't remained constant but changed throughout history during all phases- when the Muslims ruled over us, when the British colonized us and post independence.

This is what happens when people become too involved in just Western politics. You assume things to look similar everywhere else.

Anyways, Hinduism isn't a great religion for women. Especially today it isn't. Look at the Hindu men around you. Look at these politicians. Do you think these men have their best interests in their hearts for you?

Men always consider women and children collateral damage. Even the ones with whose politics you agree with look like these. And men will show you only the atrocities committed by the "enemy" men on you.

Ms-hells-bells talked about it in a much better way than me.

When you ignore issues like these it ends up affecting women most.

You're convinced Muslim men are the problem and a threat. The government passed CAA. Are you happy about that?

Because this is gonna affect Muslim women more. According to Hindu nationalists, Islam is a horrible religion that is brutal to its own women. So they passed CAA. Now migrants from this religion won't be able to seek shelter because they aren't persecuted anywhere apparently (search up about Rohingya Muslims to know this is a lie). But who's it gonna affect? Muslim female migrants who suffer greatly under the patriarchy. From countries like Afghanistan.

But please insist on how much of a feminist you are while shitting on one religion but defending your own.

I wish people would know that "tradwives" don't involve just white Christian women but also women like these who may seem progressive if you don't know the politics of the place she comes from.