#and that the Israeli far right government is correct in its genocide

[ipwarn]

Holy fuck I should delete twitter. Unfortunately, the sole reason I still use it is for Broadway news. And I have yet to find a place that matches it. I set up a Bluesky account and would happily move myself over there but nobody is using it.

Please god can there be a mass migration now? Bluesky looks exactly how Twitter used to look. And it's not run by a pathetic incel like Elon Musk.

[infiniteglitterfall]

This is a fascinating peek into what Gazans really think about Hamas

It tracks perfectly with everything I've seen from Gazan activists, which is... pretty much the exact opposite of how it's all portrayed in the West.

I heard about it just now through Mo Ghaoui, one of the Palestinian activists I follow on Twitter. He writes:

"Ahmad Saeed (Gazan media personality) posts on facebook a question to Gazans [what] would you do if you were Hamas.

(Sidebar: Facebook's autotranslator is mistranslating this post as starting, "If you were in the fifth place" instead of "If you were in Hamas's place."

Makes sense, because in Hebrew the word for five is very similar to "Hamas." And Hebrew and Arabic have lots of overlap like that.)

"Post is ~3hrs old farming hundreds of replies and interactions

"I asked AI to sort top replies and sentiments

"Top Common Sentiments [no particular order]

"Apologize to the Palestinian People:

Many comments demand that Hamas apologize to the people of Gaza and Palestine for the suffering caused over the years.

"Step Down from Governance:

Calls for Hamas to relinquish control of Gaza and hand over authority to the Palestinian Authority [the government of Palestine] or other entities.

"Ceasefire at Any Cost:

Prioritizing an immediate halt to the war to save civilian lives, with any concessions necessary.

"Admit to Failures:

Public acknowledgment of mistakes and mismanagement since their governance began.

"Dissolve Military Wing:

Proposals to disband the Qassam Brigades and surrender weapons under international supervision.

"Transfer Negotiations to the Palestinian Authority: [aka the PLO, Palestinian Liberation Organization]

Suggested as a means of achieving a broader, unified Palestinian representation.

"Withdraw from Politics Entirely:

Comments advise Hamas to revert to its earlier role as a resistance movement without engaging in governance.

"Prioritize Humanitarian Needs:

Calls to open crossings, facilitate aid, and focus on rebuilding Gaza.

"Seek International Mediation:

Involve regional or international actors like Egypt to negotiate and manage the transition.

"Surrender for the Sake of Lives:

Suggesting that surrendering to Israeli or international demands could prevent further bloodshed.

"Protect What’s Left of Gaza:

Focus on minimizing further loss of life and preserving the remaining population and infrastructure.

"Reintegrate with Arab States:

Shift alliances away from Iran and seek closer ties with Arab nations for broader support.

"Conduct a Public Referendum:

Let the people of Gaza decide on the future of governance and representation.

"Return the hostages:

Comments propose various options regarding hostages: releasing them unconditionally to achieve a ceasefire, exchanging them for Palestinian prisoners, retaining them as leverage for broader negotiations, or transferring them to a neutral party like Egypt for mediation. The common goal is minimizing further bloodshed while addressing strategic priorities.

"Disclaimer ; Chatgpt prompt is to analyze common sentiment not top liked "translate in memory, share most common sentiments in english"

"My Personal favorite reply picks for what Hamas should do :

- Commit Suicide

- Climb down the tree

- God forbid i am hamas

- Ill bang my head all day and night"

If all you ever saw on the topic was what groups like SJP say, you'd think Hamas was the celebrated "Palestinian Resistance" of (presumed) legend and lore, and that calling for hostage return was somehow calling for genocide.

And, certainly, that Hamas had fuck-all to do with facilitating aid coming in.

Hamza Howidy, by far my favorite activist of any kind right now, would correct us on that if we listened:

Personally, I'm fucking stunned that so many people backed THE PALESTINIAN AUTHORITY on any of this.

To the best of my knowledge, there is truly no farther you can fall, in Palestine, than to have people ADVOCATE for the (weak, sloppy, borderline dictatorial but also ineffectual, widely scorned) PA over you.

Even in recent polls, the PA's shit was barely ranked higher than Hamas's.

Pretty damn impressive.

The fact that the Palestinian government hasn't even tried to get involved in negotiations, basically let Hamas take 40% of the population in a violent coup 17 years ago and has never stood against it since... but has certainly been willing to collude with it, if only it were violent enough to meet Hamas's standards... tells you everything you need to know about it, really.

Is anyone else as surprised by any of this as I am? More surprised? Completely baffled?

How do we get the pro-Palestinian movement to shift to reflect what the people of Gaza are advocating for? Put your thoughts in the reblogs and replies, please!

[vergess]

Image description by @supericelight

A reply by tumblr user @rodeodeparis that says: "germans in particular have a recent history of supporting zionism as an over-correction for what nazis did, and the history of german antisemitism in general (look up anti-germans on wikipedia). american & euro politicians tend not to think too different. fucked up shit happens when you delineate a fringe right-wing nationalist group as representative of an entire ethnoreligion. End description.

#is the term zionist a bad term to use? (tag from @fungi-funguy)

No, "zionism" is not a bad term*.

*Unfortunately, like everything else about this situation, the answer is complicated.

Basically, in its original form, and as the word is often used by diasporic jews, Zionism is a morally neutral term about the desire to return to our homeland and live safely and openly as Jews.

However, this is NOT the definition of zionism used by the state of Israel or by Hamas.

In that specific context, "zionism" was appropriated to describe far right nationalists in Israel, a change in definition started and supported by EuroAmerican colonial powers.

That is the "zionism" that "antizionists" oppose. The far right ethnonationalists in Israel, who call themselves "zionists."

For a similar phenomenon, we need look no further than the Republican party of the US, which is likewise named after a morally neutral form of governance: the representative republic.

Much like someone who is "antirepublican" is not opposed to the concept of a republic, but rather, opposes the political and violent group named after the concept.

So, the concept of zionism is fine. It's a normal, neutral, unconcerning thing. It's no more offensive than any other diasporic group or person feeling an immigrant's longing for their motherland. A concept so inoffensive that there are multiple Disney cartoons about it, such as Elemental.

However, the political groups that organize under the banner of zionism are almost always far right groups centered on creating an illusion of racial disparity in the middle east between Jews and others peoples. In fact both Jews in the middle east AND everyone else in the middle east are under constant imperial threat from the USA et al. Once this illusion of racial disparity is set, power seeking and violence begin, leading to the horrific situation we have right now.

Namely, where the Israeli state is very reasonably concerned that if they don't Do A Fucking Genocide On Gaza then the entire country will be wiped off the map. Which, to be clear, does not justify the genocide at all. But it's unfair and shortsighted to pretend that Israel wasn't purposefully put into this position of immense danger by EuroAmericans to benefit EuroAmericans.

For a more detailed breakdown of what I mean by that, I recommend this post I wrote a couple days ago, which is a bit harried but gets the basics across.

"Where do you think my grandmother spent the Second World War?"

"Adam Broomberg, a prominent Jewish artist and Berlin-based photographer, asked this of the police after they grabbed him by the neck, threw him to the ground, beat him on the back then led him away in handcuffs."

(later in the article...)

"The justification for a pre-emptive ban on a child-friendly afternoon action to hold up watermelons, the fruit associated with Palestine, would almost be comedic if it weren’t quite so cynical—’antisemitic watermelons’. On Nakba Day itself, police vigilance was so extreme that police at one point stopped people from dancing the dabke on the basis that this traditional Palestinian dance potentially amounts to ‘political expression.’ All literature about BDS and any flyer containing the word ‘Nakba’ was seized."

[girlactionfigure]

A letter to uni Students:

Dear College Student:

Since the spring semester, a lot has happened on the international scene.

Here’s a quick update on the last THREE months (since late May) that you’ll absolutely need to know on campus this Fall:

1. The Taliban are now running Afghanistan.  38 million people live there.  The population will now be subjected to a medieval regime that will subjugate women, murder those who cooperate with the West, engage in arbitrary arrest and detention, remove rights to assemble and protest, and oppress minorities.  And it will likely get much worse as they ramp up violence both at home and abroad.

2. Lebanon has become a failed state.  The government has collapsed, and they are experiencing an astonishing financial meltdown.  Critical medicines are running out, and there is an imminent water crisis looming.  Corruption is rampant and desperation is everywhere.  The World Bank says that the economic crisis in Lebanon is one of the worst since the 1800s.  Expect mayhem.

3. Tunisia last month brought down the curtain on the Arab spring, as the President dismissed the Prime Minister, froze parliament, and lifted immunity for lawmakers.  That’s right, the place where the “Arab spring” started, and the only place where democracy sort of got going, has now killed political freedom, and returned to being an autocracy run by a President who has decreed full powers for himself.

4. The civil war in Yemen has markedly worsened.  A total of 130,000 people have now died.  20 million need humanitarian assistance and protection.  A decimated economy is pushing the country to the brink. 5 million are now one step away from succumbing to famine and the diseases that go with it, and 10 million more are right behind them.

5. Iran elected a new President, Ebrahim Raisi, who is also known as the “Butcher of Teheran” for his role as a judge in condemning up to 5,000 opposition figures to death without a shred of due process.  He is under US sanctions for human rights abuses and he has described homosexuality as “nothing but savagery”.  It is said that he is the most extreme Iranian President ever (and he faced stiff competition for that title).  He is now in charge of pursuing nuclear weapons.

6. In Syria, Bashar Assad was just “reelected” to a fourth seven-year term.  The ongoing Syrian civil war (over which he presides) turned ten years old this year.  At least half a million Syrians have died, including thousands who have been tortured and executed in government prisons.  About 13.5 million Syrians have been forcibly displaced in the last decade, more than half of the country's population.  Of these, 6.8 million are refugees and asylum-seekers who have fled the country.

7. Naturally, I have left the ugliest situation of all till last:  Israel.  If you don’t believe me that Israel is by far the worst place on this list, just ask your professors.  They will confirm that I am correct.

In Israel in the last three months, a new democratic government, representing a compromise arrangement among eight diverse parties, was sworn in.  That government includes an Arab Islamicist party for the first time ever.  The government has presided over relatively quiet borders and has allowed for the renewal of humanitarian assistance efforts in Gaza.  It has removed all restrictions on gay men donating blood.  It is about to pass a budget with a $ 9 billion provision that will flow directly to Israel’s Arab and Druze communities.  One third of the new cabinet is female (including women of color) – a record number.  The shekel is at its highest level in a decade, and the high-tech driven economy will not be slowed.  In the last 3 months, Israel has sent teams to assist in Surfside, Haiti, and Greece (fires).

Oh, and in July, the UN estimated the total Palestinian population in all areas to be 5.25 million.  That’s up from 1.2 million in 1967 … clearly the Israelis have totally opted out on that “genocide” thing…

As you can tell, dear college student, this Fall nowhere is more deserving of your attention than Israel.  It is obviously the scourge of the world, the place from where all terrible things emanate.  Please do your best with the protest time you have available.  Don’t spend a moment worrying about those other places – just make sure that the world knows how bad Israel really is.  Intellectual rigor and moral clarity demand nothing less… 

Source unknown

Peter Baum

[evilwickedme]

ok, sorry if this is a stupid question, but i wanted to ask a jewish person bc i thought u might have some insight. whats the deal with ben shapiro, and other jewish people like him who are buddy buddy with the American far right? like, im honestly baffled??? why would someone shoot themselves in the foot like that?

I was gonna reply to this with “because people are stupid” but I decided to give this question some serious thought.

I think it’s a combination of two things: willful disregard of anything that doesn’t fit in their worldview, and the genuine lack of space for Zionist Jews in the left.

If you need any proof that the left is intolerant regarding Zionist Jews, you need to look no further than the current Demi Lovato scandal, who simply visited Israel and was baptized. She was then accused of promoting genocide, and criticized when she pointed out - in my opinion, rightfully - that people are constantly criticizing her for everything she does that isn’t 100% perfect. I’m not even a Demi stan - as many of you are probably aware, I’m a die-hard Taylor Swift fan, and I think she’s honestly got some issues regarding her treatment of Taylor and various other women that make me dislike her - but this showcases how every mention of Israel must be prefaced in the left with “no, I don’t support mass murder!!! Israelis are actually Nazis!!!! The American government FORCED Jews into a land that wasn’t theirs despite the innocent Palestinians who had been living throughout that land for ever and ever!!!!”* or its inherently evil, even when a fucking pop star just visits the country. (Believe it or not, pop stars aren’t politicians, and this isn’t their area of expertise.) I don’t think I need to get into why this is wrong, infantalizing for Palestinians, or antisemitic on this post - you’ve all heard my opinions on this issue, probably dozens of times. But if a goyische pop star receives this, imagine the hate that Jewish people feel.

(* Actual claims I saw in a facebook post regarding the Demi scandal the other day, quoted almost word for word.)

So you’re already feeling pretty otherized by the left, and you’re lucky enough to be a pale-skinned Jew. You’re desperate to hold on to your privilege, because let’s be real here, Jewish light-skinned privilege is only going to last so long in this political climate. So you veer right - hard. And the space your in welcomes you in a way leftist spaces never will, with open arms, because the right wing needs its token Jews the same way the left wing does, but without the open hostility. “Anything you feel is correct,” the right says; “you need to reconsider everything about your life,” the left says. So even though right-wing Zionism is motivated by antisemitism, even though in the end, the politics you’re spewing will backfire on you, even though none of this is supported by your culture, your religion, or your history, you end up being being Ben Shapiro, because it’s easy.

Ben Shapiro wants to be white. He’s heterosexual, he’s a cishet man, his life is easy, and it would be so much easier if he were white, too, so he pretends he is, and to get into the club - the way all the other pickmes and token minorities do - they espouse shit that doesn’t actually help them at all, because that’s the only way they see to get in.

Also, for the record, not a stupid question at all.

[raysondetre]

Yep -and that's why I didn't go to Radiohead’s concert this year. And Thom can rag on artists who didn't approve or public opprobrium on twitter all he wants (which my impression of was it was negligible, certainly I only tweeted twice on the matter), -all he's showing that is he might be stuck in the identikit straightjacket enough he's incapable of suffering a disagreement over a major issue.  The last time I had to suffer thru that was when Billy Corgan was a Global Warming denier -and he couldn't suffer a debate or disagreement, and I threw him one. I'm not sure I give a flying flip if Thom proves himself intolerant on a left side issue he doesn't agree with, where the faux pas might prove just as bad in terms of prospects for the end of the world. (Israel incentivizing the collapse of the ME for its own benefit in collusion with Saudi Arabia/Turkey is the best recipe for WWIII the planet has ever witnessed.) He can complain, but he certainly doesn't get to deny me my personal right to exercise my consumer choice to not attend the concert of an artist who chooses to play in Israel in its current climate, which is like a violent black hole sucking up the Middle East, thanks purely to its utter political impunity globally. They don't feel a pinch anywhere. BDS is literally the only form of social sanction left, and he tells us to stuff it because he doesn't like to get lectured? What a ponce. He feels embedded because Jonny is married to an Israeli Jew of Arab extraction? Good for him. You could have left it at that. Saying that through her they know Palestinians is about as meaningless as saying she has black friends. (As if knowing Palestinians who live on the Israeli side who are discriminated against but not under Occupation somehow changes or justifies anything that’s happening.) Anyone embedded at this point has to balance things out by actively engaging in the Occupied Territories, -figure out a way to balance things out somehow. I bet he/she's never lived in the Occupied Territories, and as far as I'm concerned that's still having utterly no clue. I did. I lived on both sides, and until I’d lived in the West Bank, even though it was in eyeshot, I had no clue. I'm informed, and Radiohead's decision was a heartbreaker. That is all. Roger goes there. 

Thom has a disturbing proximity to Louise Mensch thanks to her hubby being Flea's manager (-he manages RHCP -the connection is Thom’s and Flea’s longstanding band collaboration as Atoms for Peace). They're already on mental crack and off the map in neo-McCarthyland if absorbing this (which seems likely given their proximity to a ground zero source). Parading his superior intellect is laughable while he's apparently already falling for the neoliberal f***tard #resistance (if you dare to use retard, Thom, I’ll go one better) -along with all of his elite/professional class liberals. (It was a tweet. He fell for it initially and I’ve paid no attention since, but a cursory examination shows he’s on board.) When your entire class has just demonstrably proven that you'd sooner invert McCarthyism rather than come to terms with the failures of the prevailing orthodoxy, or you're incapable of recognizing this machination for what it is, well, that’s not too keen of an intellect at this point. Neoliberalism is just the 'smooth' version of denialism bent on giving us the kinder face of fascism along with a dead planet. -So Radiohead don't live in the US where they could get pwned by the Russian tool trope just for exhibiting rational thought, eh? It doesn't threaten them. Just like they've in no way suffered a threat from the Occupation and never will. Suffice to say they’ll in no way be threatened as participants in BDS, when legislation has been attempted in places as far flung as Canada to stamp out a boycott campaign by criminalizing campaigners (our present neoliberal Prime Minister supports this in spirit if not in legislation).  Jonny Greenwood’s wife has her Israeli citizenship and Jewish national privilege as a Jewish emigre from an Arab country ( actually it was her parent or her grandparent who immigrated on this basis). Her family is one of foreigners automatically granted Israeli citizenship because they were Jewish while Palestinians are forcibly removed from their own land elsewhere in Israel and the Occupied Territories to accommodate this foreign influx, purely by virtue of the fact that they are not Jewish. If this is through her grandmother (Jewish lineage is determined matrilineally) -then the grandmother was part of the diaspora following the Nabka and this woman’s family would have been among the Palestinians never permitted to return, -if not for her Jewish heritage. -Pretty much sums it up. Jonny Greenwood’s wife’s very citizenship is the fulcrum of this religion as exclusionary privilege dependent on birth exercised under the pretension of behaving like a functioning democracy. She is literally the one benefitting at the Palestinian’s collective expense. If she can make her peace with that reality by having Palestinian friends, good for her. But it in no way ameliorates the situation itself. This may grant her the self-regard of being both Arab and Jewish, but that integration only works in one direction. I met Palestinians claiming heritage to the place as long running as she claims for her father in Iraq; they have no rights on their own land. The displacement surrounding them is a constant unremitting social holocaust, and that’s if that family even exists anymore. They claimed to have been Jews who converted at the time of Christ. The claim of her heritage as Jewish pre-empts his claim to the right to live in Bethlehem, though it may be just as long. His family’s claim only exists under an exercise of prolonged gradual erasure and constant annihilation exacted by the State of Israel, -for not being Jewish. PS: The division inflicted by the right is nothing compared to those on the Left, as they were designed to shatter the left. The right generates fracture, the left’s fractures are internal. The right is fine, the left is shattered. And a mass sell out of our greatest artists (considering what they could be) was no flaming help at all. What a flame out to watch. 

Disillusionment all 'round, Thom. Actually it flaming hurts. And Thom here, if he really believes in not causing division, could make an effort rather than dolloping out than this trolloping piece of condescension, especially since he’s already apparently falling for the latest division sent to destroy the real left (the Russians did it, not the flaming neoliberal subversion of the left that made this whole election an exercise of differentiation between levels of sadism one must expect, replicated from one western nation to the next). The Russian ploy exists to buttress the failure of neoliberal hegemony (hence, denial), whose only raison d’être in the first place was to destroy the left by creation of a facsimile with a gloss over of identity politics. Maybe Thom Yorke could take a hot tip from Noam on that one instead of falling for this little number. He certainly missed Noam’s hot tip that neoliberalism is by definition fascist.   PPS: As for Mr. Godrich: when my kid doesn’t do any homework and his classes are in jeopardy, I withdraw his PS3. On a national scale, the cultural boycott is no different. I think people who are already in disagreement within that country can understand the need for a little withdrawal of privilege from the majority of the culture who have no problem denying the Palestinians everything to the point of extirpation and Cabinet posts are casually allotted to ideologues who get their compass bearings from Meir Kahane (an American Rabbi who participated in a terrorist organization and who advocated Palestinian genocide is experiencing a popular resurgence) with hardly any protest by the domestic population. No, for Jerusalem Day, 2017, they were singing for Palestinians to be wiped out. Not to mention Harvard’s entry into #BDS was incentivized by an Israeli minister taking control of the Al Aqsa Mosque in the company of 1000 Israeli police officers.  This reaction is so first world it hurts. I can’t have my concerts! What a travesty! The bulk of humanity in the meantime is far too poor to do any concerts, and the Palestinians can’t hardly at all. I have hardly been able to go to concerts for decades now, so here’s to getting a clue. Read Part III and IV if you want to have any clue just how milquetoast the environmentalists Thom adheres to are, seeing as they’re funded by some of the bigger ecocide-al profiting billionaires the planet has to offer.   PPPS: WE DIDN’T WANT THIS. It’s the ONLY FORM OF POSSIBLE SOCIAL SANCTION left when all world government has failed. And if we didn’t publicly engage in economic sanctions en masse to correct institutionalized social evils that won’t correct internally and are being supported by international governments, the planet would still be blessed with South Africa. And if you want to be ingratiated intellectually with the world and involved intellectually, you quit putting xenophobic racists as your Minister of Defense (Avigdor Leiberman), because the two don’t mesh. For the world to withdraw is corrective. It must be asserted that those traits don’t belong to governance nor civilization, and cannot be sanctioned as such. Brian Eno knows this (along with 1200 other artists). When Thom reached for Noam Chomsky, he lied in the sense that he misrepresented Noam’s views, which can be summed up as basically the broader public are too deluded effectively participate (when is this an excuse), -plus relativism, as in the US is so bad why aren’t we boycotting Harvard first off (-fine, -let’s go for it until they correct their globalized blood bath), and thirdly, that it becomes the subject of focus in debate when Israel opposes BDS, rather than the issues themselves, effectively sidelining them. Noam took the position of opposing BDS on these grounds while acknowledging simultaneously that Israel’s condition is far worse than South Africa’s. Tom Yorke treats Noam’s position as if it’s moral. It is not (and that “sideline” hyperlink dismantles it in depth). Noam doesn’t oppose BDS on principle. He actually supports BDS within limits (quoting from the link above), i.e., “BDS should be limited to opposing Israel’s “occupation” of Palestinian territory conquered in the June, 1967 war, which he emphasized after 2002. In his July, 2014 article, he cited approvingly the first goal of the BDS movement, “Ending its occupation and colonization of all Arab lands occupied in June 1967 and dismantling the Wall,” Israel’s “separation barrier,” which effectively annexes to Israel parts of the West Bank.13 This “makes good sense: it has a clear objective and is readily understood by its target audience in the West.”14 Chomsky found “the case” for advocating the second BDS goal, “Recognizing the fundamental rights of the Arab-Palestinian citizens of Israel to full equality,” to be “ambiguous.” He acknowledged that Israel’s oppression of its Palestinian citizens violates international law, but found such criticism hypocritical. The call for equal rights for all Israeli citizens “at once opens the door to the ‘glass house’ reaction: for example, if we boycott Tel Aviv University because Israel violates human rights at home, then why not boycott Harvard because of the far greater violations of the United States?”14″  Noam Chomsky disagrees with the third BDS platform as well, support of the right for forcibly expelled Palestinians to return to Israel and the Occupied Territories. In short, as well summarized by one Gregory Smith: “Chomsky supports BDS targeted at Israeli institutions in the Occupied Territories, or Israeli institutions directly linked to the occupation. But he does not support BDS measures targeted at non-occupation-linked institutions inside Israel.” So Thom took it upon himself to reach for a BDS supporter, -claiming to be in alignment with this individual when there is no way to know as Thom gives no position other than to imply one that’s divergent by aspersion, claiming by his usage that this intellectual was against BDS, when Noam’s position was more for than against. Score one for Thom for a patent falsehood.

As for Thom declaring that his position is also shared by J.K. Rowling, her point of reference includes blithely falling for twitter feeds out of Syria, parading this exchange as emotionally authentic when both parties are signed to the same talent agency. Based on the position of that twitter feed, (which has inevitably been rewarded the requisite attention since it cries for Western/US military intervention), Thom’s basically buttressing his position by reaching for imperial lite. 

AND THAT FOLKS, IS ALL HE’S GOT. If he wants to participate with the minority against BDS, he has to have a position. Thom has no clue that 80% of Canadians support BDS, whereas the reigning neoliberal Prime Minister has accosted BDS as anti-semetic, an accusation he has the audacity to launch against the vast majority of his constituents who disagree with him. If this is the position Thom has chosen to align with (neoliberalism’s very existence is in order to attenuate and terminate social justice sought by the broader public by defanging the left, -see ‘spectrum shift’’s comments in the above hyperlink for how it decimated the Canadian left), he represented their position rather sorely. 

Our Prime Minister is now on record as lying about every liberal platform he appealed to his constituents to vote for him for, -from electoral reform to marijuana legalization to aboriginal reconciliation (we got the Federal forcing of the Trans Mountain pipeline (which has 19 aboriginal cases against it) and the Site C dam instead, (when the Site C is on Treaty 8 land). He was at least honest about his continued support for unwarranted spying against Canadian citizens under the guise of Bill C-51. When he completed the largest arms deal to Saudi Arabia in Canadian history, ranking us among the top five of their arms producers, he said his hands were tied. That’s a neoliberal for you. Thom has also misled the general public in his only public response that makes an effort to buttress his position. His response relies on practically nothing beyond this falsehood as per identifying with an intellectual and a purely petulant emotional response.

The politicians, BTW, that Thom lists on his wall of shame in order to shame BDS, equating them as being equally divisive, are all vehemently against BDS and extreme Israel supporters, and are even responsible for bringing terrorism home domestically, a position which, had Thom Yorke been a voting American, he would have apparently voted for in his fear and loathing of Trump, feeling decidedly righteous about his alignment with these wartime legacies resulting in waves of refugees to Europe, -providing they were the fruition of neoliberals. Not that I looked, but I highly doubt Thom Yorke ever complained about Obama’s bombing of seven Muslim nations, let alone Libya.

Odd how he shames BDS participants by equivocating them with a right wing they are the very opposite of, BDS’s strongest opponents. The point he attempts is leavened in equal measure with the extremity of the insult. Beyond that, he spent the bulk of response wailing about HIS and the BAND’s EMOTIONAL DISCOMFORT at having been confronted by BDS, complaining that any advocate was deeply patronizing. This is literally the sum of his complaint, ignoring the entire backdrop and context as so much graffiti splattered on a wall, asserting that of course they know it all and they of course are so much smarter than that. Yet apparently he didn’t know the situation enough to reference it in his official comeback, we’re just supposed to accept his assertion that he does know based on his oh so superior grounding and mental faculty. We weren’t worth a response, -when Thom’s is problematic to begin with since relying on Jonny Greenwood’s Israeli connection is purely personal anecdote. I’m grounded in this situation purely by my individual personal connection (and that’s more than sufficient) passes the smell test of intellectual rigour nowhere on this planet ever. Worse yet, framing a response almost purely on his and his band’s own personal discomfort to the situation is beyond first world pathetic. His response is all about himself. He can’t even frame a position based on the reality of the situation. In short, he has no argument, and is flaunting the implication that he may have had these arguments in private but to even air his position is far too beneath him, though being massively insulting to everyone who took the opposing position is not, and every one of the artists who appealed to Radiohead not to perform in Tel Aviv falls under his blanket condemnation of having been overwhelmingly patronizing, -based on the laughable repudiation that Thom exists in first person anecdotal “evidence” that makes him “fully grounded”. This doesn’t just reek of condescension. It’s flaming condescension that has nothing backing it up because none of the public opposition is worth active thought. His complaint is that those in opposition didn’t approach the band personally but approached the situation publicly, -notwithstanding that virtually everyone in opposition to Radiohead performing in Tel Aviv has no ability to access Thom Yorke other than publicly, and that is literally how boycott campaigns must operate, by highlighting those who refuse to participate and endorsing those that do. Furthermore, however this was conducted by individual artists, whether there were several instances of personal effrontery involved, which only the band would know, the nature of such exchanges has LITERALLY NO BEARING on the rational debate of whether or not the band should or should not perform in Israel. Yet that is virtually the sum of Thom’s complaint, upset at personal individual treatment of himself and his bandmates, when it is he who has categorized every individual in opposition not on the virtue or failure of their position, but by claiming they were all failures interpersonally. This is not a rejection of their position, but a blanket rejection of them as people (identity politics wins the day in the total evacuation of substance, and on this basis I reject all of you). Because it’s all about how we feel and interact in the debate that matters, and how we feel is the verdict, -effectively erasing the entire substance of the debate. That isn’t a rational reaction. It’s functionally absurd, and Thom parades this as if he’s too intellectual to respond with anything else. Quite priceless when it appears he needs a tap on the shoulder to remind him that feelies never figure in debate?

-At least he tried, right? Which I’m sure is more than can be said for others such as Depeche Mode and RHCP. 

I take too long, so thankfully, someone commented at Variety and nailed it PERFECTLY: “Very interesting — he talks about everyone and everything except palestinians. he is in fact erasing them. just because his bandmate is married to an israeli arab means nothing. what does she think? we’re not told. and she is a citizen of israel, not a palestinian who is subject to the brutal and oppressive practices of a half century long israeli occupation that even israelis increasingly describe as apartheid. nor does yorke address the fact that by playing there he is in fact normalizing the occupation and going against the express with wish of the vast majority of palestinian civil society organizations, who have determined this is the best way for them to fight nonviolently against the occupation. instead he gets angry at roger waters for pressing the issue and making him uncomfortable with his friends. perhaps he should consider what it means to live as a palestinian. then complain about how bad he feels. his defense of playing israel reflects both a complete ignorance of the realities of the occupation and the goals of BDS, and the arrogance of someone who is too privileged to actually consider that sometimes you need to take a principled and difficult stand.” -Thank you, Mark LeVine.  And yea, everyone at this point who supports BDS is now faced with a personal question. If a band actively refuses to participate in BDS as Radiohead has just done, is it your moral obligation to boycott them for profiting off a performance in Israel? Those profits aren’t small. Let your basis for arriving at  this decision be known loud and clear.  As for the response below by deathistardy: Isn’t it astonishing how an individual can equivocate the decision not to buy a single concert ticket with advocating death of Israel as if their reaction is rational? The first hyperlink presented in this essay delineates the crippling logical fallacy that gets him there (”identikit straightjacket”). This was the peace process he alludes to. It is redundant that it failed because the failure serves Israel in perpetuity, and is what they desire, because illegal settlements on Palestinian occupied territory have never been halted and the perpetual failure of the peace process allows this travesty to continue. The parity instituted in these negotiations by the US is a paradigm that is completely false. And this, this and this is Ehud Barak.  Do not enter here unless you know of what you speak. My dream is Israel’s true integration which might mean it truly inherits its place as God’s nation by embracing a one state solution that embraces their greater heritage and in one fell swoop manages to reverse the crippling tide of colonialism with the purest act of reversing the travesty against them by integrating the indigenous population, -graduating from the most polarized of war time situations by virtue of love and peacemaking. They alone in this world might be capable of such transcendence. We can hope. They could be well capable rectifying the sum of history if they just embraced forgiveness and self-recognition. I believe both sides are fully capable if they just rejected the epic failure that is their leadership.