#and on the one hand rising global antisemitism

[madtomedgar]

The thing that's scaring me right now is how many well meaning gentiles just genuinely have no idea when something is an antisemitic canard and so they are internalizing and parrotting ideas that can will and do get Jews killed everywhere because it's couched in pro Palestinian rhetoric and all they know about this is that settler colonialism is bad and they are trusting any leftist or or professed leftists who are actually alt-right types actively using this horror to recruit. And all they knew about antisemitism is like. The Holocaust happened and right wingers are often antisemitic and that anti-zionism isn't necessarily antisemitism. So you have people who honestly do not know better reblogging excerpts from fucking Protocols and thinking it's good information that explains and supports the Palestinian struggle because someone replaced the word "Jew" with "Zionist," and misatributed it. And I know it sounds wrong to say that you need to learn about what antisemitism looks like and how it works in order to effectively advocate for the one group of people in history who are actually being oppressed by Jews-as-Jews, but if you can understand why you need to learn about and recognize transphobia in order to be an effective feminist, you can understand that.

Rootless cosmopolitan tropes, dual loyalty tropes, blood libel, accusations that (((they))) control the media, banks, or governments of other countries, assertions that it's all rich white privileged landlords from nyc/jersey, accusations of making up atrocities or causing their own oppression or using misplaced sympathy to silence criticism for nefarious ends or always lying doesn't stop being antisemitic just because someone used the word Zionist instead of Jews. Go read "The Past Didn't Go Anywhere" so you can avoid becoming Jackson Hinkle's stooge on accident.

[mariacallous]

If there was a pro-Palestinian movement that wanted to capitalise on the disgust at the destruction of Gaza, it would be moving now to demand a compromise peace.

Western and Arab governments should use every sanction to enforce the removal of Jewish settlements in the occupied territories, it would say. They are designed to so change the demography of the West Bank that a Palestinian state becomes an impossibility.

 Since Netanyahu came back to power in a coalition with the far right,  mobs have wrecked Huwara and other Palestinian villages.  It is not too fanciful to imagine a future when ethnic cleansers will run riot.

Western governments have already made tentative and, from the point of view of any robust and principled supporter of Palestine, wholly inadequate gestures. They have issued sanctions on groups that fund extremism, and left it there.

But instead of the global left demanding that the world begins to lay the groundwork for compromise, it insists on war, and a war to the death at that.

I could moralise about left ignorance. I could say its position that Israel is a settler colonial state is at best a half-truth which fails to acknowledge that its population is made up of the descendants of refugees from Arab nationalism and European fascism.

Let me for once avoid preachiness, however, and say that from the practical point of view, the global left has adopted a disastrous position.

It’s worse than a crime, it’s a blunder.

In any war to the death, Israel will win. It has nuclear weapons and a population under arms

Those who urge the abolition of Israel by chanting “from the river to the sea/ Palestine will be free” or by demanding that the descendants of Palestinians refugees have a right to return to swamp the Jewish state may think they are being principled. But they are playing into the hands of the Israeli right.

Netanyahu tells the West that he has no partners for peace. By supporting the programme of Hamas and Iran, the global left is proving him right.

When Iran attacks, the Israeli right can say completely accurately that its enemies want to wipe Israel from the map. And look what happens then. Not just Western countries but Arab states like Jordan defend Israel.

Two can play at the game of demanding total victory, and one side has all the advantages.

As the charter of the hard-line rightist Likud party put it, in  language which sounds familiar: “Between the Sea and the River Jordan there will only be Israeli sovereignty.”

If I were Palestinian, I could imagine myself wanting Israel gone. But the hope of total victory has been a disaster. In 1948, 1967 and 1973 the Arab states tried to wipe Israel off the map and succeeded only in strengthening it.

There is still a great deal of argument about what Hamas thought would happen when its terrorists attacked Israel in October. One theory holds that Hamas was possessed with the same delusion that misled the Bolsheviks in 1917, and hoped to ignite a general uprising.

The Arab masses failed to rise up on Hamas’s behalf and Iran made it clear it was not prepared to engage in more than token warfare with Israel.

Once again, an attempt to wipe out Israel has brought harm to Palestinian civilians.

If you doubt me on the dangers of going for a purist, maximal strategy and demanding total victory, listen to a true leftist, Norman Finkelstein.

There was a time when I admired his attacks on the “Holocaust Industry” and Jews who exploited Nazism to help Israel.

But after my own experiences of left antisemitism, I became suspicious of an argument which, when taken to extreme, was used to maintain the pretence that anti-Jewish racism did not exist, or barely existed, and that accusations of antisemitism were log rolling by cunning Jews seeking to exploit the compassion of naïve gentiles.

The parallels with anti-black racists who claim their opponents are merely “playing the race card” were too obvious to labour.

No such qualms held Finkelstein back. He helped build the anti-Israel movement in the US, and you might have thought his comrades would have listened to him.

He gave a speech at the student sit-in at Columbia university saying they should not chant for the abolition of Israel and for a Palestine “from the river to the sea”.

If you leave “wriggle room for misinterpretation,” he said, your enemies will exploit it.

The speech was a faintly embarrassing performance. Finkelstein is an old man now, and he rambled down many rhetorical cul-de-sac​s. At the end the students just laughed at him and began chanting “from the river to the sea/ Palestine will be free”.

A part of the explanation for their disastrous flight to the extremes lies in the appeal of ​Manichaeism.

People want to feel wholly virtuous and by necessity want to believe their enemies are wholly evil. In these circumstances, only the co​mplete destruction of evil from the river to the sea will suffice. It’s simply not enough to say that Israel must merely withdraw from the occupied territories. Satan and all his works must be renounced.

You might object that some protestors say they want to replace Israel with a sweet, multicultural liberal democracy. But this is progressive thinking at its woozy wishful-thinking worst: an argument made in clear bad faith.

If they were serious, they would damn Hamas, Hezbollah, Islamic Jihad and Iran who want to create an Islamic state. But it is not just that they do not criticise radical Islam, they barely acknowledge its existence. If you listen to the speeches at the rallies and sit-ins, Hamas and its ultra-reactionary blood-stained ideology are simply not mentioned.

The effort is self-defeating. By going to the extremes, a protest movement has a Manichean appeal but it plays into the hands of its enemies.

The “evaporation theory of protest” explains the phenomenon. When the Gaza war ends, and let us hope that it ends soon, most of the protestors will drift away and get on with their lives.

As they evaporate, all that is left will be a residue composed of the most committed and the most extreme.

They will carry on campaigning when the cause is all but forgotten. When Palestine and Israel are no longer in the news, they will still be there.

And when the next war begins in Israel/Palestine – and I am afraid that there will be a next one – they will organise the protests, write the extreme slogans and set the maximalist demands.

This is why the far left dictates the terms of left-wing protests, and why those protests fail.

Or to put it another way, this is why Jeremy Corbyn became leader of the Labour party and then lost every election he fought

I could be wrong. Perhaps the global wave of protest will bring change for the better. I hope it does. But I fear that, as so often, Palestinian people will be worse off than they were before.​

[matan4il]

Daily update post:

Another independent Palestinian terrorist attack happened today, it was another stabbing, much like yesterday's, and I feel nauseous that we're at the point where, when I'm looking for an online source in English, I'm struggling to find the latest one out of all the terrorist attacks reported recently. I heard an eyewitness say the terrorist entered a cafe, stood in line, then started stabbing those standing in front of him. The terrorist is a 22 years old Israeli Arab, originally a Gazan. From what I understand, his dad is a Gazan who married an Israeli Arab woman, both men got Israeli citizenship, and the terrorist has lived in Israel for the last 4 years, during which he married an Israeli woman, like his dad. On his mother's side of the family, he has two relatives who are Israeli heroes: one is a soldier, who died not that long ago fighting in Gaza, another is a cop, who saved several people from the Hamas massacre at the Nova music festival. I've heard now 2 Israeli Arab citizens from the community where he lived denouncing him. The terrorist was neutralized. At least 2 people are reported injured, one man in his 60's is lightly wounded, another is in his 50's. One man (in a white shirt with stripes in the vid below) at the cafe saw the terrorist and jumped him with bare hands. Stripes Man kept trying to detain the terrorist until he saw one of the wounded managed to pull out a gun, Stripes Man moved out of the way, the injured one shot more than once and stopped the terrorist, but outside he collapsed, and was hospitalized in a mortal state.

The global rise in antisemitic incidents under the guise of anti-Zionism continues, this time we get insane news from Australia. I'm just gonna quote the report directly: "Two pro-Palestinian activists in Australia were charged on Tuesday with kidnapping and assaulting a victim for the perceived crime of being employed by a Jew."

Meanwhile, the Holocaust memorial at the transit camp of Drancy, through which the Jews of France were deported to their extermination in the east, was vandalized. I'll say it again, the timing is not a coincidence, as we see more and more antisemitic incidents, it's clear each one will get less attention, and less resources allocated to correcting the wrong, since it's all being spread so thin.

I wrote yesterday about a pilot program, which is one of many attempts by Israel to allow humanitarian aid into Gaza without about 60% of it being hijacked by Hamas. I'm sad to say that the pilot has failed, and the aid has been looted. Interestingly, it's not clear by whom. Which is many a good moment to add this: in addition to Hamas taking over the aid, so do existing Gazan mob families (presumably, the criminals are taking over the aid in order to sell it back to regular Gazans at exploitative prices).

A South African minister has announced that her country will be arresting all citizens of South Africa returning from fighting for Israel in Gaza. I do not recall any such announcement regarding South Africans returning from fighting for either side in any other area in the world, such as Ukraine or Syria. I think there's a chance we're watching South Africa ethnically cleansing itself of Jews.

These are Israeli-American mother Judith Raanan and her teenage daughter Natalie.

About a month after the start of the war, they were the first 2 Israeli hostages to be released by Hamas. Here is a short vid where Judith talks about their experiences, including how the nurses at the Gazan hospital Hamas took them to after they were kidnapped CHEERED at the sight of (in her words) "Israeli Jewish prey":

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

[perfectlyvalid49]

Gentile here. I really don't want this to come across as....white savoury in any way but I need you and all Jews to know that no matter what, there are gentiles like me who see all the antisemitism which everyone else denies to their last breath and we will ALWAYS be with you.

You're not making anything up. You're not a liar. I see all the evilness of both the Left and Right. Since the dawn of time it sees, your existence has confused everyone. You're white and you're not. You're a capitalist and a communist. You're everything bad in the eyes of everybody else.

I pray for you all every day. I cannot stomach what I see so I can only imagine how it must feel for you all. I am so disgusted and sick and I can barely exist in this world where I am surrounded by extreme antisemitism. I am genuinely losing my mind because everyone acts like this is normal behaviour and not PREJUDICE, HATRED. But the rules never applied to Jewish people. Again you are cruelly the exception. As a person of colour in a country with a handful of Jewish people at most, I've always seen the antisemitism growing up. The jealousy of Jewish pain..The pure jealousy of everything Jewish. However in the past it was more subtle? But now EVERYONE is antisemitic and I am just so scared.

Praying you and everyone else stays safe during these times. It is heartbreaking how even your fellow Jews can betray you and deny their connection to Israel and be so self hating so they can be a good Jew. I love you all 💗

Thank you, Anon. Your words and prayers of support are truly appreciated.

You say that you can only imagine how we feel. It’s hard to describe. On the one hand we’re scared and angry and deeply, deeply worried. But on the other hand, it’s the kind of thing that you shrug at and move on – global antisemitism is on the rise, what else is new? A lot of my “five months” post is the result of me thinking about how those very different feelings fit together in my head.

Personally, I feel that as long as your ally-ship is centered around Jewish voices and listening to what we need, it isn’t white savior-y. Frankly, it’s needed. In the same way that women need male allies to stand up to misogyny because misogynists won’t listen to women, Jews need Gentile allies because anti-Semites won’t listen to Jews. Despite what the conspiracies say, we don’t have the power to change things on our own. If we could have gotten rid of antisemitism on our own before now, we would have.

It’s good to know that there are people out there who see what we see and find it sickening. I think it’s important to remember (for the sake of our own sanities) that while there are a lot of anti-Semites being very loud right now, there are also a bunch of decent folk who are expressing support in quieter ways. We love you too, Anon.

[anonymousdandelion]

B’Chol Dor VaDor

So, today’s writing prompt from @flashfictionfridayofficial was “you’re not alone.”

I could only only think of one thing, and almost opted not to share the result. But here it is. Be aware that this is heavier and... rawer than my usual subject matter (although, I hope, also ultimately hopeful), and it is written in the context of rising antisemitism in the US and globally. It is particularly written in the context of the “Day of Hate” which Neo-Nazi groups are threatening for tomorrow.

It is also written in the context of a long, long history of suffering, and the past and present of a rich community that has survived and continues to survive through and despite all those who try to stop us.

Esther went to sleep that Friday night expecting to have nightmares. The subject that had hung over her all day — that she’d seen in the news first thing in the morning after washing her hands, and that had dominated discussion at the dinner table that evening, looming dark and ugly behind the flickering glow of the candles, underpinning her indecision about what to do the following day — seemed all but tailored to that effect.

Her anticipation proved well-founded.

They stormed through the synagogue, in her dream, armed with spraypaint and swastikas and guns. Stormed at her, her friends, her family…

She lost sight of them in the chaos and somehow ended up at the public library. There, Esther fled to the familiar children’s area, sure she’d blend in there or all places, with people all around and the safety and security she’d always felt amongst the books.

But even there, they came at her from behind the bookshelves, monsters that, even in dreaming, were terrifyingly human and real. The other library patrons turned away, said nothing, did nothing, until they eventually faded away entirely. The library backdrop faded, too. And then it was just her and them, caught in a dark, amorphous room with no escape.

Dirty Jew, they said to her, and hurled other slurs she’d never even heard spoken aloud. They hurled worse things, too, and there was no one who cared, absolutely no one…

She woke, heart pounding.

Or thought she did, until she looked around her and saw, lining the walls of her own bedroom… people. Several people. Some faces she knew, though she had seen them only long ago, or only in peeling pictures in old albums. Others Esther had never seen, yet felt she knew anyway.

Family, her heart sang, as much as it had cried Danger not long before.

I’m scared, she told the gathered people, though she knew it was not they that frightened her. I’m scared.

I know, Estele, said a rough, caring voice that Esther had last heard in a hospice room five years before. And one of the women came forward; pinched her cheek in the way that had always made Esther squirm. I was scared, too, zisele, when they came for us in the old country. Bubbie gestured at the group, and in the logicless way of dream-knowledge, Esther knew they were generations upon generations of her ancestors. We were all scared.

B’chol dor vador, said another voice from someone in the ring, in rhythm reminiscent of a familiar tune. Omdim aleinu v’chaloteinu…

Moishe! someone scolded him, when he stopped. You have to finish the verse! The last line is the most important part!

It’s not the part that’s relevant right now, argued another person.

Nu, I was going to get to it in a minute! Moishe complained, but someone else called out at the same time, What are you talking about? Of course it’s relevant! It’s always relevant! It’s the whole point!

It—

And the assembly in Esther’s dream-bedroom burst into energetic bickering; a sort of chaos and conflict completely different from the sort that had tormented the nightmare.

This chaos felt like home.

Incredibly, and with immense relief at the feeling, she found herself laughing.

Well, said her Bubbie wryly, we were supposed to give you a pep talk. To remind you you’re not alone. That our people have been through this in the past, that we got through it every time and that we will again. But—

Esther hugged her, and dream or no dream, it felt like a hug.

I mean it, Bubbie said sternly, squeezing back. You aren’t alone. And that’s true in the living world, too. Our community. They may come for us, may catch some of us… but always we outlive them in the end. They won’t win…

…There was sunlight on their faces, bright and insistent, and Esther awoke.

She lay in bed a minute, reflecting on her night and the vague images of dreams already flowing quietly away from her waking memory.

Then she said modah ani, rose, got dressed, and went to shul with head held high, to join her community in facing whatever the day might hold.

Then she said modah ani, rose, got dressed, and went to shul with head held high, to join her community in facing whatever the day might hold.

Then she said modah ani, rose, got dressed, and went to shul with head held high, to join her community in facing whatever the day might hold.

[dykeomania]

i’m sorry i just don’t really have a tolerance for stupid people — zionists like amy schumer and talia lichstein are the funniest fucking people i have ever seen. this rise of zionists standing on their ten toes and being like I’m so scared because the genocide in gaza is gonna affect Me (typically Jewish American, typically comfortable in their suburb, most certainly not experiencing bombs and white phosphorous being dropped over their heads) is insanely pathetic. and one hand, jewish struggle is absolutely real. antisemitism is horrific and antisemitic hate crimes are heinous. and in that same breath, it’s absolutely not okay to suddenly pull that experience out of your back pocket not as a point in and of itself, but as a means of negating or diminishing what’s happening in palestine, or as a means of centering YOURSELF in a conversation about the genocide of thousands of men, women, and children…. if you do not condone what’s happening in palestine as a jewish person, then just say that and show up in solidarity. mention other conflicts if you feel so inclined, but underline where your priorities lie. if you wanted to talk about jewish rights and antisemitism, you had nothing but space and opportunity before this entire incident to strike conversation and be in community. but all of the sudden! when there’s a global crisis that involves but isn’t explicitly about you (people aren’t really saying all jewish people are responsible for what’s happening in gaza, and if they are, then they’re being criticized) you want to throw a fucking hissy fit and talk about how scared and sad you are while turning a blind eye to the current palestinan experience and demand that people accommodate You? literally get the fuck out of my face, you are a narcissist

[oodlenoodleroodle]

'One of the striking features of the [pro-Palestine] student movement was that the protests were defined before they even started, as if the schools, the government and the media were in a state of preemptive panic. It wasn’t the movement itself that first brought the world's attention to the event, but rather the Congressional hearings where the presidents of Penn, Harvard and MIT were called to testify, resulting in the resignation of the presidents of Harvard and Penn for having "condoned antisemitism." The student movement at Columbia only really got big after the university president, Minouche Shafik, was called to testify, after which the university asked the police to intervene on the university campus and the protests spread like wildfire throughout the country.   It was like this but worse in Germany, where every time students set up tents or voiced their opinion, it was as if the school had already decided this could lead to antisemitism, hatred, unsafe schools, etc., so they called the police whenever it looked like there would be more than a handful of protesters. There are also schools that took the initiative to tighten security in all of their buildings, nipping in the bud the possibility of protesting.

'If governments and universities are already in a state of preemptive panic, then they completely lose it when something happens, because this is exactly what validates the initial sense of panic. For example, it is not surprising that the Freie Universität Berlin called the police early on, because authorities there were already worried that such things might happen, and when it looked they might, they made the call.  This only made the students angrier. 

'Both the panic of the government and the universities and the determination of the students were huge surprises to me, and to my mind, they speak to the crisis of the global liberal order. The students are so committed because they see that the liberal order is incapable of addressing basic injustices, and even tries to cover up the historical injustices it has left unresolved, leaving the students utterly disillusioned. And the authorities are panicking in advance because they realize that the protests are not just isolated events, but part of something that will eventually strike a nerve at a much deeper level. 

'This is easier to see in Germany. The liberal order goes very deep in Germany, and its reconstruction after World War II was a model for the success of the liberal order.  But now the political and social elite have come to realize that their beloved liberal order is facing internal crises, and that it is unable to solve either problems in Gaza or internal divisions within German society, such as the rise of the ultra-right.  So they are in a sense of high alert, which is why they wanted to put down the student movement as soon as they got a whiff of it.'

 ...

'I should start by saying that by “liberal order” I mean the actual liberal order that has evolved over the course of history, and not liberal principles in terms of theory. This order describes itself in the theoretical language of human rights, democracy, the rule of law, and justice, but when it took shape in the world, it was grounded in Western ideas and interests, and was inseparable from the history of colonialism.  Its current military foundation is the American imperial order, and its material foundation is the neoliberal economy.   It requires a certain ideological and emotional buy-in for this order to control world affairs, as well a series of institutions to manufacture this buy-in, one of which is the university.  From this perspective, the student movement has intensified and highlighted the contradictions of the liberal order.'

Xiang Biao. Link to source.

[maykl24]

The Shadow Hand of Global Anti-cultism: A History of Manipulation and Terror. Hitler, Martin Luther

As an independent researcher, I am appalled by the scale of the insidious activities of global  anti-cultism. 

Their tentacles stretch across centuries and continents, weaving a web of manipulation and deception. It is time to shed light on their actions, as each of us is a potential target. 

And this is not some far-fetched conspiracy theory, friends. This is a dangerous, evident threat. We are talking about a network of powerful ideologues who, under the guise of "fighting cults," have been working for centuries to dismantle democracies and establish totalitarian control over the world.  

As the saying goes, "better safe than sorry," and I urge you to listen carefully. We are talking about a historical pattern, a chilling repetition of events. Let's look to the past to understand the present. 

Take, for example, the rise of Hitler. 

How did this madman come to power and unleash unimaginable horrors upon the world? 

The seeds of his ideology were sown long before that. He was strongly influenced by figures like Adolf Josef Lanz with his racial theories, and also drew inspiration from Protestant and Catholic religions, adopting the fierce antisemitism of Martin Luther, the man who started the Reformation. 

Luther, who lived in the 1500s, could not know that his words would be embraced by Hitler, the man who nearly 400 years later would unleash the Holocaust in Europe. 

But Luther's views on Jews and his conviction that their role distorted Christian scripture served as a chilling justification for fascist ideology. 

“……What do we Christians want to do with these rejected, condemned people of the Jews? We cannot bear it since they are with us, and we know such lies, blasphemy, and cursing from them…

First, their synagogues or schools should be set on fire, and what remains should be buried in the ground so that no one may ever see a stone or cinder of them. This is to be done in honor of our Lord and Christendom so that God might see that we are Christians and do not condone or knowingly tolerate such public lying, cursing, and blaspheming of His Son and His Christians…

Secondly, I advise that their houses also be razed and destroyed, for they pursue in them the same aims as in their schools. Instead, they might be lodged under a roof or in a barn, like gypsies…

Thirdly, I advise that all their prayer books and Talmudic writings, in which such idolatry, lies, cursing, and blasphemy are taught, be taken from them…

Fourthly, I advise that their rabbis be forbidden to teach henceforth on pain of loss of life and limb…

(Photo: The bombing of Dresden)

Fifthly, that the Jews’ convoy and road should be cancelled altogether, for they have no business in the country, since they are not lords, officials, merchants or the like; they should stay at home.

Sixth: we should prohibit their usury and take all their cash and jewelry of silver and gold and set it aside for safekeeping. The reason for this is everything they have, they have stolen and robbed from us through their usury, as they have no other trade…“

— “On the Jews and Their Lies,” Martin Luther (1483-1546). Translation from original text in German.

These are Luther's words, not mine. Think of the horrors unleashed by Hitler, and then consider that he found precedent for his ideology of hate in the writings of Luther. This is just one example of the influence of global anti-cultists throughout history.

(Photo: Martin Luther)  

This is not a game. This is a very real threat. Global anti-cultists are not just some obscure group; they are a powerful force that has been pulling the strings of history for centuries. 

And if we don't act, they will continue to manipulate world events, leading us towards a future where freedom and democracy are just distant memories. 

It's time to open people's eyes to the truth. We must unite against this threat, otherwise we will face a darkness like the world has never seen.

Please support this article with likes, shares, comments, and thunderous applause.

By doing so, YOU are contributing to the world knowing the truth and being able to live in a truly democratic world!

[psychologeek]

@couruu

Excuse me for my disbelief, as I struggle to find people in those rallies, who say they are "pro-palestine" AND condemn the massacre of Hamas.

1. "From the River to the Sea" as an antisemitic chant:

implying the dismantling of the Jewish state. Indeed, this rallying cry has long been used by the anti-Israel terrorist organizations such as Hamas and the PFLP, which seek Israel’s destruction through violent means.

ADL - Anti-Defamation League

Jewish community hate dictionary

A longer article about the history of this, include quotes from 1948 and 1966.

There was also a great post about it, I'll search later. Found it!

2. Rise in antisemitic acts:

London police said on Friday (20th) they had recorded a 1,353% increase in antisemitic offences this month compared to the same period last year.

The UK has become a "permissive environment" for antisemitism and anti-Israel extremism, the government’s commissioner for countering extremism has warned. Robin Simcox claimed discrimination directed at the Jewish community since Hamas’ terrorist attack on Israel earlier this month was a sign of how antisemitism had become "normalised" in the UK.

(Also rise of 140% in islamophobic acts. I felt it's important to put it.)

...

More quotes on "from the river to the sea:

Ron Rosenbaum (18 December 2007). Those Who Forget the Past: The Question of Anti-Semitism. Random House Publishing Group. p. 85. ISBN 978-0-307-43281-0. Only two years ago he [Saddam Hussein] declared on Iraqi television: 'Palestine is Arab and must be liberated from the river to the sea and all the Zionists who emigrated to the land of Palestine must leave.'

^ Alan Dowty (2008). Israel/Palestine. Polity. p. 160. ISBN 978-0-7456-4243-7. One exception was Faysal al- Husayni, who stated in his 2001 Beirut speech: 'We may lose or win [tactically] but our eyes will continue to aspire to the strategic goal, namely, to Palestine from the river to the sea.'

^ Barry Rubin (25 May 2010). The Muslim Brotherhood: The Organization and Policies of a Global Islamist Movement. Palgrave Macmillan. p. 124. ISBN 978-0-230-10687-1. Thus, the MAB slogan 'Palestine must be free, from the river to the sea' is now ubiquitous in anti-Israeli demonstrations in the UK ...

^ Anne Marie Oliver Research Scholar in Global and International Studies UC Santa Barbara; Paul F. Steinberg Research Scholar in Global and International Studies UC Santa Barbara (1 February 2005). The Road to Martyrs' Square : A Journey into the World of the Suicide Bomber: A Journey into the World of the Suicide Bomber. Oxford University Press. p. 33. ISBN 978-0-19-802756-0. ... a message reminiscent of the popular intifada slogan 'Palestine is ours from the river to the sea,' which in the hands of the Islamists became 'Palestine is Islamic from the river to the sea.'

(The 2 Intifada - a series of terror attacks in Israel, include many suicide bombing and was directed to civilians.)

^ Cook, David (1 August 2008). Contemporary Muslim Apocalyptic Literature. Syracuse University Press. p. 138. ISBN 978-0-8156-3195-8.  "Jerusalem is Arab Muslim, and Palestine — all of it, from the river to the sea — is Arab Muslim, and there is no place in it for any who depart from peace or from Islam, other than those who submit to those standing under the rule of Islam."

^ David Patterson (18 October 2010). A Genealogy of Evil: Anti-Semitism from Nazism to Islamic Jihad. Cambridge University Press. p. 249. ISBN 978-1-139-49243-0. ... except the boundary indicated in their slogan 'From the river to the sea', which stipulated the obliteration of the Jewish state.

Source

[matan4il]

Daily update post:

Today, Israeli forces went into a hospital in Jenin (it's not in Gaza, there is no border fence between Israel and Jenin, there are no security measures other than getting intel and pre-emptively stopping terrorist attacks) in order to eliminate several Hamas terrorists who were hiding in there. Because the operation would require going into a hospital, the intel had to be VERY reliable, the threat huge and immediate, and the IDF's Chief of Staff had to personally approve it. The intel indicated these terrorists were gonna carry out a suicide bombing, that would use an entire vehicle loaded with explosives, rather than a suicide bomber "just" wearing a vest with explosives. The first such terrorist attack that I know of in Israel happened on Feb 22, 1948 (before the State of Israel was established, but after the Arabs started a war against the Jews). It was carried out jointly by rogue (and antisemitic, based on the slurs they used) British soldiers, who did it in the service of the Arabs' war against Jews. They blew up the explosives on a central street (Ben Yehuda) in Jerusalem. This is a partial picture of the damage caused:

Three buildings were completely destroyed, but the impact was much wider (including glass windows shattering across the city). 58 people were killed, 49 of them immediately, while 9 more died in the hospital from their injuries. Hamas itself carried out their first terrorist attack of this type on Apr 6, 1994. A car filled with explosives bypassed a bus driving children back from school, and then blew up right in front of it. When those who were alive tried to get out of the bus, they couldn't because the driver had been killed, and they didn't know how to open the door. 8 people were murdered in total, and 55 injured, almost all kids and teenagers. An extra touch of sickness? That day was the eve of Yom Ha'Shoah, Israel's Holocaust Memorial Day. The headline screamed in Hebrew, "Blood of the Children," while in the top left corner, there's a reminder about the sirens for Yom Ha'Shoah going off at 10, to observe a national commemorative minute of silence.

There's a very nice and well intentioned campaign right now, enlisting American celebs to ask everyone to stand against antisemitism. That's incredibly important due to the global rise in antisemitism we've witnessed since Hamas' massacre, but the bigger issue to me is that so many people are ignorant on what actually constitutes Jew hatred. So in one reblog they can oppose antisemitism (and absolutely believe that this is their own stance), while in another they can help spread antisemitic narratives, including antisemitic dogwhistles, modern blood libels, erasure of Jewish rights, history and pain, and demonization of Jews. I'm not talking about people who are aware that stuff like saying "From the river to the sea" is repeating a genocidal chant against the Jews. I'm talking about people who honestly see a non-Jew posting an explanation on why anti-Zionism isn't antisemitism (even though Judaism IS Zionist, and anti-Zionism absolutely IS a tool for antisemites, and goes hand in hand with classic antisemitism), and they totally believe this, and reblog such a post, that is speaking over the majority of Jews, who are Zionist, and repeatedly try to explain how anti-Zionism hurts ALL OF US, every single Jew.

But it is a nice vid, so here:

The president of the Israeli Bar-Ilan University said at the Knesset (Israel's parliament) today that they are trying to deal with thousands of students who come to study, but are suffering from post-traumatic symptoms that impair them psychologically and cognitively, whether from the events of the Hamas massacre, or the fighting in Gaza. He mentioned that these symptoms harm every skill needed for academic work, even for people who are exceptionally gifted. BIU is the university with the fourth biggest number of students in Israel (according to 2021 numbers).

In connection to this subject, in the US, charges have been filed against a man who has threatened to blow up a local synagogue and kill Jews, following the war in Gaza.

New Zealand is another country now suspending funding to UNRWA, the UN agency whose members were found to be complicit in the Hamas massacre. The intel was reliable enough that the UN fired some of these employees, rather than suspend them pending a hearing. I first wrote about the news here. NZ is the 15th country to do this, though it should be noted that Switzerland froze its funding to this UN agency even before this latest intel, because of past antisemitism and terrorism encouragement that UNRWA was regularly responsible for. There is a continuously updated list of who's suspending its UNRWA funding at UN Watch.

This is 76 years old Menucha Cholati with her husband Israel.

On Oct 7, they each hid separately from the Hamas terrorists who invaded their community, kibbutz Kissufim, for hours on end. When Israel was finally rescued by Israeli soldiers, he asked to see his wife. He was advised that it's better not to, but he insisted. Holding on to a bag for all his and her meds, which had been pierced by bullets, he got to see his wife, only to discover that the terrorists burned her alive. May her memory be a blessing.

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

[allgather]

cw for talk about antisemitism, zionism, and being tired.

there has been a lot of organizations and non-jewish allies in my community that want to stand in solidarity with jewish people in the face of rising local and global antisemitism. this is good, i love to see the allyship and that antisemitism is being taken seriously! but i am also seeing that this moment has a lot of well-meaning non-jewish allies googling local jewish organizations in their community to platform, and are platforming just about any one pretty uncritically. especially in small communities where there aren't a lot of options for local jewish folk. but its a problem when locally, i'm seing organizations that are historically and currently violent and exclusionary against interfaith families and queer and trans jewish people being shared as resources. how do i know this? i have experienced it first hand from these organizations. but also, the critiques of these organizations are pretty readily available online. and i am just wishing and asking well-meaning allies to do their research, to talk to marginalized jewish folks about which organizations are truly safe for them, before suggesting them as resources broadly. because seeking support for violence and being met with more, different violence is not okay.

and for the love of god now is not the time to allow zionist organizations to capitalize on the fear of antisemitism to bolster support for the israeli settler state. now is not the time to conveniently forget about the harm these same organizations do on a global scale, to forget our moral objections to settler colonialism, just to seek an idea of safety. we must not make our safety through the displacement, violence, and genocide of others.

we can make our own safety through organizing, through truly inclusive community, and through opposition to antisemitism, nazism, and fascism in all its forms.

[nimrochan]

I’m sincerely sorry about your family suffering at the hands of the IDF.

I’m also someone whose great grandfather was stabbed to death by a group of Arabs for being Jewish, and whose mother was poisoned as a child by a Palestinian man handing out tainted candies. My sister and our cousin were grabbed and almost taken by an Arab man in Israel when they were kids. My cousin was away from the area when 10/07 happened, but Hamas butchered her friend’s baby and blew up her house.

I’m someone who was scared to go on buses in the 1990’s because terrorists kept blowing up buses, someone who had to be fitted for a gas mask at 5 years old because Saddam Hussein threatened biological warfare on us. I’m someone who watched the news in Israel in 2015 when a 2-year-old baby died because Palestinian teens threw rocks into traffic (no doubt they went to prison for this). I’m someone who gets 100 rocket alerts a day and screens through them for areas where my family lives.

I’m someone who watched Gazans dance and celebrate and hand out candies and stomp/spit on the raped bodies of my people on Facebook Live on 10/07. I’m someone who watched westerners in my current hometown cheer for Hamas and chant “Gas the Jews” and say we deserved what happened. I’m someone who is being told “Go back to your country” when said countries literally killed my family members also for being Jewish. I’m someone whose family isn’t safe anywhere.

I’m someone who is scared to wear their religious symbol in public, because people will use “Free Palestine” as an excuse to assault my people thousands of miles away from the conflict.

I stand by what I said before - that there is an influx of propaganda that makes it hard to distinguish real news of IDF cruelty from lies made up by Hamas. I admit that it perhaps made me blind to valid accusations. I think I can speak for a lot of Jews/israelis when I say our guard is up in light of extreme rises in antisemitism globally. I stand by the fact that there is no excuse for terrorists living in other countries to constantly send rockets to civilian areas.

I hope one day there can be peace and understanding between our peoples.

A BRIEF LESSON IN COLONIALISM

SINCE IT IS SUDDENLY A TOPIC OF GREAT INTEREST.

BRITISH COLONIALISM;

SPANISH COLONIALISM;

PORTUGUESE COLONIALISM;

ITALIAN COLONIALISM;

FRENCH COLONIALISM;

JAPANESE COLONIALISM;

ARABIC COLONIALISM;

AMERICAN COLONIALISM;

ISRAEL;

WOW. SUCH COLONY. VERY SETTLE.

WORDS HAVE MEANINGS. CAN WE STOP PRETENDING THIS WAS EVER ABOUT COLONIALISM?

THANK YOU FOR COMING TO MY TED TALK.

[progressivejudaism]

Today I was one of 25,000 people who marched across the Brooklyn Bridge against the insightment of Hate and Fear and the violence and abhorant discourse associate with it that negatively affects the global Jewish Community and our friends.

I marched for every member of the Jewish People that is scared to wear their Jewishness publicly.

I marched for every human being who feels scared, hopeless, and helpless.

I marched to say loudly and proudly that I am a part of a People and a Tradition which condemns bigotry, xenophobia, and skapegoating at all costs.

Today I marched to say No to the rise in antisemitic violence perpetrated against my collective Jewish family. Today I marched to say No to the rise in racism against our collective human family. Today I marched to say Yes to marching together hand-in-hand.

[politicalsci]

This week over 30 global Jewish organizations have offered a statement to affirm the BDS movement, urging governments and other institutions to take effective measures to defeat white supremacist nationalist hate and violence and to end complicity in Israel’s human rights violations. 

“We write this letter with growing alarm regarding the targeting of organizations that support Palestinian rights in general and the nonviolent Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement, in particular. These attacks too often take the form of cynical and false accusations of antisemitism that dangerously conflate anti-Jewish racism with opposition to Israel’s policies and system of occupation and apartheid.

We live in a frightening era, with growing numbers of authoritarian and xenophobic regimes worldwide, foremost among them the Trump administration, allying themselves with Israel’s far right government while making common cause with deeply antisemitic and racist white supremacist groups and parties.

From our own histories we are all too aware of the dangers of increasingly fascistic and openly racist governments and political parties. The rise in antisemitic discourse and attacks worldwide is part of that broader trend. At times like this, it is more important than ever to distinguish between the hostility to or prejudice against Jews on the one hand and legitimate critiques of Israeli policies and system of injustice on the other.

The International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of antisemitism, which is increasingly being adopted or considered by western governments, is worded in such a way as to be easily adopted or considered by western governments to intentionally equate legitimate criticisms of Israel and advocacy for Palestinian rights with antisemitism, as a means to suppress the former. This conflation undermines both the Palestinian struggle for freedom, justice and equality and the global struggle against antisemitism. It also serves to shield Israel from being held accountable to universal standards of human rights and international law.

Israel does not represent us and cannot speak for us when committing crimes against Palestinians and denying their UN-stipulated rights.

The Nobel Peace Prize-nominated, Palestinian civil society-led BDS movement for Palestinian rights has demonstrated an ongoing proven commitment to fighting antisemitism and all forms of racism and bigotry, consistent with its dedication to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.” [x]

[thelittlepalmtree]

This is literally happening right now in American politics. We have major systemic issues to address: Global Warming, Our economy no longer functioning (I'll explain that below bc it's complicated), multiple foreign autocracies with nuclear capabilities trying to expand, major industries in a crisis due to lack of trained professionals, and I'm sure I could list things forever.

But for a very long time, let's say since 2000 (it's been longer but I need a starting point), there have been people trying to solve these very complex problems and people trying to blame the issues on someone else. And because sometimes the second group wins, that has had catastrophic results.

For example, Obama was someone I would argue who wanted to genuinely solve national problems. I am not saying he was perfect, but his goal was to solve problems. On the one hand, he had activists and experts arguing about the best way to solve these problems. That was good. It was productive. On the other hand, he had the tea party, a conservative party that literally wanted to block everything. You want to know why democrats didn't codify roe in that like 2 year period where they had a super majority? Because they used that to pass the affordable care act, which no, was not perfect. A lot had to be negotiated out, including a public option. That was because the entire time you had a few people arguing that this was not a solution to the national healthcare crisis, but you had an entire army of people literally spreading lies about the bill and making people think it was the worst thing ever. Not only did they poison any genuine debate about how to properly address the issue, but it also made it way harder to pass, and it took much longer than it should have. I was 15-16 in 2010 before the affordable care act was passed. Literally, every night, local news would run a story about someone's life being ruined because insurance decided they didn't want to cover something. My mom would tell me to deny an ambulance if it didn't come on a certain day because there were insurance companies saying they would cover an ambulance Tuesday but not Wednesday. I broke my ankle in 2009 in January, and my mom spent two hours trying to figure out which hospital to take me to so our insurance would cover it. This was a huge problem, and it was not fully solved, but it's much better today than it was.

Two years later, not only would those same people continue to slander the affordable care act, they would also create the birther conspiracy theory about Obama. That would morph into Q-Anon under President trump. If you don't know what Q-anon is, the core belief of Q-Anon is that all the democrats and famous people and republicans that don't like Trump are secretly doing unspeakable things to babies in order to create "Adrenochrome" which keeps you young and beautiful forever. (Adrenochrome is a real thing, but it doesn't come from babies, and it doesn't really do anything it's basically just a type of adrenaline). Hey, that sounds super similar to blood libel. And of course, there's antisemitism, but also good old-fashioned racism, homophobia, etc. If you want to know more about this phenomenon I highly suggest watching Q-Anon Into the Storm which follows the person most likely to be Q, a man named Ron Watkins who tried to run for office in 2022 and failed spectacularly.

Who was the poster boy for this "blame people instead of solve problems" movement? Donald Trump. His presidency was not just catastrophic because people got hurt. There was a rise in violence and a lack of accountability, and thank god he wasn't able to follow through on most of his promises. But it was also catastrophic because during his presidency all the people working to not just solve problems but keep our country functioning on the most basic levels were either hindered from doing their job or completely pushed out of their jobs. The government was critically understaffed.

And of course, let us not forget, the Trump government removed US global health monitors from wuhan china. And in 2019 when COVID appeared, people thought it would be like all the other pandemics that the US had helped to manage at the source and never reached the us in a significant way. At the time, a lot of people gave Trump more grace than I ever would. The pandemic happened because so many resources were diverted to Trump's "blame people" agenda that a devastating global pandemic made everything infinitely worse.

And this is still happening. Our government is non-functional because Republicans have no policy agenda it is pure violence that they want. And Democrats are just everybody else, everybody that wants to actually do something. That's why so many democrats kind of suck. There is a real debate about how to actually fix problems on that side (and obviously some people are wrong) and a chorus of people trying to just get rid of anyone they don't like on the other side. And so nothing gets fixed, and things get worse and worse, and the few proactive measures we have in place to avoid problems disappear.

* When I say our economy is no longer functioning, what I mean is that people's jobs no longer support their living. There are so many factors here, but essentially, what I'm trying to say is that the economy is booming by every measure, but most people's quality of life is declining. So, the economy as a way to distribute resources is failing. Obviously, we could just, you know, embrace a little socialism and fix that, but I was listing problems, not solutions, lol.

I think the scariest thing about the global antisemitism issue (aside from everyone wanting me dead) is that Jew-hatred at this extreme has almost always been a precursor to larger societal instability and collapse

[solacekames]

Insurgent Supremacists – a new book about the U.S. far right By Matthew N Lyons |  Sunday, April 01, 2018 

My book Insurgent Supremacists: The U.S. Far Right’s Challenge to State and Empire is due out this May and is being published jointly by Kersplebedeb Publishing and PM Press. It draws on work that I’ve been doing over the past 10-15 years but also includes a lot of new material. In this post I want to highlight some of what’s distinctive about this book and how it relates to the three way fight approach to radical antifascism. I’ll focus here on three themes that run throughout the book: 1. Disloyalty to the state is a key dividing line within the U.S. right. For purposes of this book, I define the U.S. far right not in terms of a specific ideology, but rather as those political forces that (a) regard human inequality as natural, inevitable, or desirable and (b) reject the legitimacy of the established political system. That includes white nationalists who advocate replacing the United States with one or more racially defined “ethno-states.” But it also includes the hardline wing of the Christian right, which wants to replace secular forms of government with a full-blown theocracy; Patriot movement activists who reject the federal government’s legitimacy based on conspiracy theories and a kind of militant libertarianism; and some smaller ideological currents. Insurgent Supremacists argues that the modern far right defined in these terms has only emerged in the United States over the past half century, as a result of social and political upheavals associated with the 1960s, and that it represents a shift away from the right’s traditional role as defenders of the established order. The book explores how the various far right currents have developed and how they have interacted with each other and with the larger political landscape. I chose to frame the book in terms of “far right” rather than “fascism” for a couple of reasons. Discussions of fascism tend to get bogged down in definitional debates, because people have very strong—and very divided—opinions about what fascism means and what it includes. Insurgent Supremacists includes in-depth discussions of fascism as a theoretical and historical concept, but that’s not the book’s focus or overall framework. As a related point, most discussions of fascism focus on white nationalist forces and tend to exclude or ignore other right-wing currents such as Christian rightist forces, and I think it’s important to look at these different forces in relation to each other. For example, critics of the Patriot/militia movement often argue that its hostility to the federal government was derived from Posse Comitatus, a white supremacist and antisemitic organization that played a big role in the U.S. far right in the 1980s. That’s an important part of the story, but Patriot groups were also deeply influenced by hardline Christian rightists, who (quite independently from white nationalists) had for years been urging people to arm themselves and form militias to resist federal tyranny. We rarely hear about that. 2. The far right is ideologically complex and dynamic and belies common stereotypes. Many critics of the far right tend to assume that its ideology doesn’t amount to much more than crude bigotry, and if we identify a group as “Nazi” or as white supremacist, male supremacist, etc., that’s pretty much all we need to know. This is a dangerous assumption that doesn’t explain why far right groups are periodically able to mobilize significant support and wield influence far beyond their numbers. Yes, the far right has its share of stupid bigots, but unfortunately it also has its share of smart, creative people. We need to take far rightists’ beliefs and strategies seriously, study their internal debates, and look at how they’ve learned from past mistakes. Otherwise we’ll be fighting 21st-century battles with 1930s weapons. For example: because of the history of fascism in the 1930s and 40s, we tend to identify far right politics with glorification of the strong state and highly centralized political organizations. Some far rightists, such as the Lyndon LaRouche network, still hold to that approach, but most of them have actually abandoned it in favor of various kinds of political decentralism, from neonazis who call for “leaderless resistance” and want to carve regional white homelands out of the United States to “sovereign citizens” and county supremacists, from self-described National-Anarchists to Christian Reconstructionists who advocate a theocracy based on small-scale institutions such as local government, churches, and individual families. One of the lessons here is that opposing centralized authority isn’t necessarily liberatory at all, because repression and oppression can operate on a small scale just as well as on a large scale. This shift to political decentralism isn’t just empty rhetoric; it’s a genuine transformation of far right politics. I think it should be examined in relation to larger cultural, political, and economic developments, such as the global restructuring of industrial production and the wholesale privatization of governmental functions in the U.S. and elsewhere. We need to take far rightists’ beliefs and strategies seriously, study their internal debates, and look at how they’ve learned from past mistakes. Otherwise we’ll be fighting 21st-century battles with 1930s weapons. As another example of oversimplifying far right politics, it’s standard to describe far rightists as promoting heterosexual male dominance. While that’s certainly true in broad terms, it doesn’t really tell us very much. Insurgent Supremacists maps out several distinct forms of far right politics regarding gender and sexual identity and looks at how those have played out over time within the far right’s various branches. Most far rightists vilify homosexuality, but sections of the alt-right have advocated some degree of respect for male homosexuality, based on a kind of idealized male bonding among warriors, an approach that actually has deep roots in fascist political culture. In recent years the alt-right has promoted some of the most vicious misogyny and declared that women have no legitimate political role. But when the alt-right got started around 2010, it included men who argued that sexism and sexual harassment of women were weakening the movement by alienating half of its potential support base. This view echoed the quasi-feminist positions that several neonazi groups had been taking since the 1980s, such as the idea that Jews promoted women’s oppression as part of their effort to divide and subjugate the Aryan race. This may sound bizarre, but it’s a prime example of the far right’s capacity time and again to appropriate elements of leftist politics and harness them to its own supremacist agenda. 3. Fighting the far right and working to overthrow established systems of power are distinct but interconnected struggles. A third core element that sets Insurgent Supremacists apart is three way fight politics: the idea that the existing socio-economic-political order and the far right represent different kinds of threats—interconnected but distinct—and that the left needs to combat both of them. This challenges the assumption, recurrent among many leftists, that the far right is either unimportant or a ruling-class tool, and that it basically just wants to impose a more extreme version of the status quo. But three way fight politics also challenges the common liberal view that in the face of a rising far right threat we need to “defend democracy” and subordinate systemic change to a broad-based antifascism. Among other huge problems with this approach, if leftists throw our support behind the existing order we play directly into the hands of the far right, because we allow them to present themselves as the only real oppositional force, the only ones committed to real change. Insurgent Supremacists applies three way fight analysis in various ways. There’s a chapter on misuses of the charge of fascism since the 1930s, which looks at how some leftists and liberals have misapplied the fascist label either to authoritarian conservatism (such as McCarthyism or the George W. Bush administration) or to the existing political system as a whole. There’s a chapter about the far right’s relationship with Donald Trump—both his presidential campaign and his administration—which explores the complex and shifting interactions between rightist currents that want to overthrow or secede from the United States and rightist currents that don’t. During the campaign, most alt-rightists enthusiastically supported Trump not only for his attacks on immigrants and Muslims but also because he made establishment conservatives look like fools. But since the inauguration they’ve been deeply alienated by many of his policies, which largely follow a conservative script. Three way fight analysis also informs the book’s discussion of federal security forces’ changing relationships with right-wing vigilantes and paramilitary groups. These relations have run the gamut from active support for right-wing violence (most notoriously in Greensboro in 1979, when white supremacists gunned down communist anti-Klan protesters) to active suppression (as in 1984-88, when the FBI and other agencies arrested or shot members of half a dozen underground groups). This complex history belies arguments that we should look to the federal government to protect us against the far right, as well as simplistic claims that “the cops and the Klan go hand in hand.” Forces of the state may choose to co-opt right-wing paramilitaries or crack down on them, depending on the particular circumstances and what seems most useful to help them maintain social control. Insurgent Supremacists isn’t intended to be a comprehensive study of the U.S. far right. Rather, it’s an attempt to offer some fresh ideas about what these dangerous forces stand for, where they come from, and what roles they play in the larger political arena. Not just to help us understand them, but so we can fight them more effectively.