#about israel but also other places

[frogfacee]

i’ve been seeing some talk about how “this propaganda is so bad” and “they must think everyone’s too stupid to think” and stuff like that, and i just wanna say be careful not too internalize these thoughts so much.

yes, sometimes propaganda is easy to spot. there are things you see and immediately go “what the fuck, who’d believe that” and that’s GOOD. that means you’re noticing tactics, you’re questioning things, you’re practicing critical thinking.

but not all propaganda is so easy to spot. sometimes propaganda really is good, by which i mean skillfully done. convincing, even when you’ve practiced spotting propaganda. and that can be really dangerous!!

so, really what i’m saying is don’t get passive about propaganda. remember that, very often, it isn’t obvious. you need to do some digging, some thinking, and that thinking is WORTH IT. so worth it! you’re gonna find things you didn’t notice at first, and now you can point those things out. you can start dialogue about them.

keep pointing out the propaganda you do see. talk about it. be upset about it. recognize that you can be misled and that there’s no shame in correcting yourself. please keep thinking, analyzing, questioning, discussing, etc etc

remember that phrase “you are not immune to propaganda”? it will always, always ring true.

[arsenicflame]

It's a time-honoured tradition- every time Sam comes across Izzy (and Ed) in their travels, he asks Izzy to marry him. And every time, Izzy turns him down.

At this point, Sam is asking more for the sake of it than any belief Izzy will ever say yes, a remnant of childhood dedication touched with 30 years of heartbreak and regret- though even now, a small part of him still holds out hope. Sam's promises have only got more extravagant over the years, from a job as his first mate, to a captaincy, a fleet at his command, a whole fucking island if that's what Izzy wants- but he knows it isn't though, not really. If Izzy was ever going to agree to marry him, to leave his life and go with Sam, it wouldn't be for anything Sam could offer him. Izzy never did care for flashy shows of wealth, for a ship or to be captain. The only thing that ever mattered to him was loyalty given, and loyalty shown in return. 

It all comes to a head after Stede left and came back, after Izzy lost a toe, lost his leg. Sam hasn't seen him since before things with Ed started to really slide off the rails, before stress permanently set into the lines of Izzy’s face. So, when he sees a dishevelled man with a hoof for a leg in a no-name port, he doesn't even consider the idea that he might know him. It's only when he turns towards him, and Sam catches a glance at those oh too familiar tattoos, he realises this is Izzy, his Izzy, that stands before him.

Knowing Izzy's discomfort with pity, he doesn't treat him any differently than he would in years gone by, positioning himself in Izzy's line of sight before approaching and sweeping him up into a bone crushing hug. 

“Israel-goddamn-Hands!” he exclaims, as Izzy grumbles back a begrudging “Samuel-fucking-Bellamy”, a tradition almost as old as their friendship itself. Izzy might not hug him back, but he can’t keep the corner of his mouth from twitching, just for a second.

(If Sam holds Izzy a little tighter and a little longer than usual, well. That's his business)

By the time Sam lets go, most of the crew has appeared in the town square, drawn in by the commotion. They may have given Izzy his leg and welcomed him as one of them, but still there’s an underlying tension, with nobody quite ready to set aside everything that happened before the Kraken. Seeing him cosying up to an unknown man sets everyone on edge, unsure whether to come to their first mate’s aid, or to assume that they've been betrayed once again.

When Ed sees that the yelling was Sam, his hand goes tense where it's held in Stede's. He knows the routine, has seen it more times than he can count, but as he watches them part he realises that this is the first time in a long time he's unsure of what Izzy's response will be.

Knowing that something’s different, knowing that Izzy's feeling vulnerable already, Sam doesn't go for the same flashy proposal he’s been giving for years. He doesn't promise Izzy the world, he doesn't cause a scene (or, any more of a scene than he already has, anyway). He looks at the fractured man in front of him, takes his face in his hands, and says the exact same thing to him he said when they were little more than boys. “Israel, I have to ask you. I know what you'll say, but I have to try. Come with me. Marry me and sail away with me. I'll keep you safe”

And Izzy… hesitates. He glances over at Ed, at Stede, and says to Sam “...We’re staying in port for a week. Ask me again then”

That's the moment Sam knows there is something deeply, horribly, wrong. He's not just looking at an Izzy who got seriously injured in a fight and is struggling to cope, this is something so much bigger than that- and that Ed has something to do with it. Izzy wouldn't even be considering leaving if he didn't. Whether it was negligence or something more sinister, Sam doesn't yet know, but he intends to find out.

[unopenablebox]

i admit that i find it a little bit frustrating how Wildly Astonished other antizionist jews act when i tell them my israeli jewish family have lived in the region since [some unknown length of time before 1800 when there start being records about it]

[rotzaprachim]

one of the most bitter ironies from a certain flavour of western (usually American, British, French) leftist who’se decided to comment on the Jews Writ large and just suggest that Israelis ought to have just gone back to where they come from if they didn’t want to be murdered is that the US, UK, and France been hugely culpable in forcing massive numbers of Jews, along with other middle eastern refugees, from their homelands through colonialism and interventionist and destabilizing policies in Iran, Afghanistan , Algeria, Lebanon, Yemen, and so forth. It’s downright ghoulish to refuse to wrestle with the history behind why the vast majority of the worlds’ middle eastern Jews live in the state of Israel when YOU, as the major colonial powers of the region, are culpable for it

[brick-van-dyke]

If there's one thing I've respectively noticed from Zionists and defenders of Israeli war crimes, it's that every source, argument and potential avenue to explore each explanation is riddled with cherry picking, moving the goalposts and mental gymnastics to explain why their conclusions, which typically are barely even related to the sources they use, somehow overshadow literal reality and what we see with our own eyes.

While scrolling, one example I came across was the repetitive misrepresentation of BLM, antifa and quotes from Martin Luther King Jr, as well as statistics, scholarly journal articles and government website information. These are all good sources, yet every single time they're mangled completely until the only possible "interpretation" of any of them is "well Israel is right to defend itself after shorting rockets beforehand because the retaliation was brutal and all Arabs are bad by default therefore". As if any of these sources are even about individual exceptions of Israel versus hatred towards Arabs.

I think what I find most absurd, as someone in the middle of their own studies, is how every bit of critical thinking and logic goes out the window as they do every single thing possible to do what professors worldwide say NOT to do when evaluating sources. It's like watching a race to see who can tangle and misconstrue scientific information to fit their world view the fastest. Then said people say "um actually I studied at university before so it's actually not wrong that I'm doing this exact this everyone is warned not to do because I have a permit". Ignorance I can forgive, but willful and arrogant manipulation? That's another thing entirely.

[doomdoomofdoom]

not to get political on the blog for my thoughts of which many are political but

By far the funniest reasoning I've heard against voting for Kamala Harris is that she was/is a cop. She's not. Kamala Harris was a prosecutor.

These are not the same thing. These are so obviously not the same thing that it boggles the mind anyone would think so. Yes, cops and prosecutors work together. Yes, the US criminal justice system is incredibly flawed.

But one trains for 6 months and has the authority to use lethal force while not being required to know the law they're enforcing. The other has to spend 7 years to pursue higher education, 3 of which spent exclusively on law, and has a direct counterbalance when performing their job.

If you want to hate Kamala Harris for being a prosecutor, go do that. But don't pretend she's a cop to make it easier for you.

[eric-the-disposable-demon]

hey uh im not coming back just yet I just wanted to say I love yall

[disco-cola]

the antideutsche german „left“ is an absolute disgrace and judging from all the unfollows i got when starting to post about Gaza (i made some posts about Palestine before in 2020-22 but sadly and admittedly not as intensely yet and I’m guessing they didn’t see that yet) by people i knew from real life „antifascist“ circles i am wondering if i might have unknowingly spent 3 years being surrounded by this awful kind who in my opinion are lowkey even more dangerous than full fledged right wingers bc those you can at least recognize immediately and they are pretty open about their racist views whereas antideutsche make you believe they are antiracist and antifascist and then they turn around calling everyone and everything criticizing israel „antisemitic“ and show their true islamphobic and imperialist faces, even going as far as calling anti-zionist jews antisemitic… they refuse to divide judaism from israel and when confronted with this flawed logic they can turn pretty vile too.

anyway sadly there is „antifascist“ poser centers who have thrown people out for wearing keffiyehs (in Leipzig, namely Conne Island who have previously cancelled a black US rappers gig who said israel is an apartheid state and posting about BDS like they then called him antisemitic and they also hosted a self-proclaimed „islam hater“‘s book presentation) and holding „against antisemitism“ events while denying anti-zionist jewish people entry at the doors (in Berlin, namely ://about blank). also the rote zora in hamburg is a zionist center posing as leftist. the rote zora got occupied today by a group of pro-palestinian protestors, calling out their racism and white supremacy (because ironically these places almost exclusively are run by white German activists) and alignment with the state force used against palestine protestors including jewish people, Palestinians and other BIPOC. If you call yourself anti-fascist and your center gets called out and even occupied by immigrants, BIPOC, jewish people and communists, then you are anything but that. They so WHOLEHEARTEDLY deserve this. Free antifa from antideutsche for good!!! (Also just dropping this here but those places have instagram accounts we could collectively swarm and call them out in their comments just saying)

[penwrythe]

Learning how to be comfortable with being uncomfortable is important. I'm genuinely not okay when I hear, see, and research more about the genocide happening in Gaza, the history of Israel's founding, and its terroristic actions. It is important for me to know.

Taking short breaks (usually a couple of hours or so) does help when things get too much. Then, I return and continue engaging with reblogs on Palestine.

I really don't know what else to say, but this genocide must end. All genocides must end and must never happen again. Keep talking about Palestine, Armenia, Congo, and Sudan! Keep protesting! Keep fighting!

What is important now is to be as loud as you can be! Raise ruckus! Make your voice unavoidable! Be as annoying as possible! Do not let your representatives ignore this!

[ephemeral-winter]

also. not that i have to justify myself to the people who follow my anonymous tumblr blog. but it is perhaps obvious to those who engage with my posts regularly that i really do not talk about palestine or israel on here despite often talking about my jewish practice and synagogue life. and that is for two reasons 1) i look at my own blog when i am sad which is like three times a day so i like it to be filled only with nice or funny things and frankly thinking in public about i/p and the war is overwhelmingly distressing to me. which is a privilege yes and we can argue about how i wield that privilege some other time but neverthless it's my blog. and 2) i am increasingly sure that my judaism has to be rooted in diasporic traditions that reject nationalism in all forms, and it is important to me to show in my own small way that a vibrant (and observant!) judaism exists outside israel. can be meaningful without israel. and in fact is often better without israel. and despite my synagogue currently being far too pro-israel for my taste my jewish identity is ultimately rooted in ritual and liturgy and intergenerational community and synagogue is where i get that. so

[2024skin]

Taking these tags out of context because I like them but also adding the context of this Jewish guy talking about a similar thing and how this very problem has shaped the cultural/political climate of Israel today

[anonymusbosch]

somehow my address ended up on some Spam Me With Charity Fundraiser Mail mailing list (maybe my address got sold by one of the charities I gave to last year) and I'm sitting in a pile of mail unsubscribing - and this is one area I kind of wish there were targeted advertising for, yknow? bc I give to very specific charities and that profile should paint a very clear picture of what I'm aiming for, and I wish charities scrounging up money for American Veterans and Christian Shelters and ... anywhere that has a Prayer Request option on their website... would Leave Me The Fuck Alone

[iwritenarrativesandstuff]

So, Canada has decided to stop sending arms to Israel after an NDP motion. The Liberals made major amendments to it so as to firmly condemn Hamas as well. It's kind of a mixed bag. Honestly, it's naive of me but I didn't expect there would still be so much outrage, even if the motion did call for an acknowledgement of Palestine as a state. All the Conservatives voted against it - to be fair, some of them wanted to wait for the motion to be passed because the amendments were super last minute and the Bloc Quebecois were annoyed that because of this there wasn't a French translation.

I guess it's a step in the right direction. I think it's still weak but you can read more on it here.

Source 1, Source 2, Source 3

[inazuma-fulgur]

Read the damn article before you pretend this is me just auding Trump in getting reelected

Democrats are stopping their own candidate from getting elected ny refusing to put up someone other than Biden/someone equally unfit and racist

The thing is, the difference between Trump and Biden is their fanbase, their image. Apart from a few Bandaids and otherwise empty promises Biden does indeed continue the same politics as Trump or let's things running undisturbed.

So whether you vote blue no matter who or whatever I don't give a fuck.

But what I do give a fuck about it liberals pretending voting Biden is the end all be all of progressive politics and mandatory to prevent 'the Bad™' from happening going forward. Because it isn't stopping anything as far as we can tell from media coverage

In fact, voting third party is an option, nit voting is an option, doing anything is an option. It's probably worth more to give a random houseless person five bucks than vote Biden.

This annoys me greatly because I don't just see USians say this, I see activists and casuals from other countries with similarly corrupt issues spread the same misinformation about the US. And also about their own countries, act the same way.

Having spend a lot of time within my own countries, Germany, activist spaces and being involved I can tell you with certainty that many people have similar attitudes towards our own government. Campaigning and running ads for political parties involved in funding wars, defending police and police murders, etc.

You might have heard about 'der hohe Repräsentant' (lit. the high Representative' but likely not. Because topics like that largely go ignored by not just the media and our fucked up politicians but our fucked up activists and progressives as well.

Leftists here largely hate Palestine, deem any critique of Israel antisemitic.

Heck even small things, like our progressive parties even try to make healthcare and education worse, push for more cars over public transit. Shit like that

And then hearing people pretend they're a solution on their own, that just voting for them is sufficient. I can't. And they'll attack you for criticizing these parties, which even a supporter who believes in a lesser evil should do, has to do.

Because if you don't critique them and discourage critique (often disingenuously framed as helping the opposing parties, the myth of leftists infighting aiding the right more than the left. A liberal lie I might say), you expose yourself for how you don't send letters, don't go to protests, are in no way involved in anything. You just want their hateful and dangerous politics to continue because they protect your cozy life in a rich white 'western' country.

I think that sucks and I want you to rethink your positions. Because I believe with some tiny bit of introspection you'll realize that this is a messed up thing for you to advocate for.

Again, for the people in the back, if you genuinely believe in the lesser evil that's fine idc even if I don't, but you can't assure yourself you've done enough and you should at the very least stop people from leveraging necessary criticism against politicians.

If you keep defending Biden I'll keep thinking you consider murdering brown* people abroad and invading and destroying their countries a necessary evil to stop... *checks notes* stop Trump from starting wars and enacting racist policies?

[meatlessmcmuffin]

twitter suspends me for "violent speech" seconds after i make a joke about tapeworm physiology but the overwhelming amount of people who responded to wednesdays shooting by blaming lewistons somali community are just fine? fuck offff