#but there’s so much praise for Israel in it

[tinky-dinky]

Just remembered something about NCIS that is very disturbing.

One of the main characters is an Israeli who often talks very fondly of Israel, which isn’t bad on its own, but factor in that she’s a Mossad agent whose father explicitly hates Palestinians…yeah. Ziva is almost certainly a Zionist and probably at least helped commit some crimes against humanity.

But that’s not what I’m talking about as being very disturbing. No, that would be Ziva’s half brother, Ari Haswari. Their father, Eli David, the head of Mossad, deliberately conceived Ari with a Palestinian woman so he could be a mole within Hamas. It seems very unlikely to me that a Palestinian woman would consent to having sex with the head of Mossad, so…yeah, nonchalant implication of the rape of a Palestinian woman. Fantastic start.

Oh, it gets worse. See, one of Eli David’s children is a good person who just wants to help people with NCIS and the other is an evil nasty terrorist who just wants to hurt people. Guess which one the half Palestinian Hamas mole is.

…yep. It’s what you’re thinking. They wrote that the Mossad agent is the good nice one and the half Palestinian one is the evil terrorist one.

Now, this plotline is from 2004/2005, and I don’t know what the general knowledge level of the Israeli colonisation and oppression of Palestinians was then, but the Ziva extols the virtues of Israel and is a good nice Mossad agent storyline continued until 2013. And they’ve just announced a spin off featuring her and Tony, because making a show where the main character is a proud Israeli Mossad agent is such a great idea right now.

Of course, we’re talking about NCIS here. This show and its spin off NCIS LA love a good Muslim terrorist cell plot. Ugh.

[brick-van-dyke]

I'm still pretty sick with the flu and I'm still figuring out how to move past being frozen with hyperempathy so I'll try to be brief with this. But I want to touch on a thing I've been thinking about pretty much this entire past year.

In the last decade, or my whole upbringing and childhood as well to be honest, I saw a horrific amount of dehumanisation of Arab culture, language and idenity. All of it was associated with the Taliban, ISIS, war and terrorism to the point most young people would assume that and be suspicious when they'd see a mosque, hijab, brown skin, arabic written somewhere or any display of Arab culture. Like, no, the west has always been violently racist and you all aren't immune to that upbringing of assuming anything written in arabic to be ISIS propaganda, anything to do with Muslim holidays being seen as oppressive and bad or homophobic; a reason for suspicion. We've all been brought up with that shit.

I now want us to think about that upbringing with Jews today and how the antisemetism ingrained in the west actually defines Israel in ways much like how Islamophobia defines the Taliban or ISIS. We KNOW they aren't the same as being Muslim or being Jewish, but that doesn't stop us making associations and assumptions. It doesn't suddenly make demonizing Jews in the same way Arabs have been dehumanised okay. Both are people that deserve love, respect and protection from hate. Political Zionism, Mossad and Modern Israel are western inventions that aren't Jewish at all, just as much as ISIS and the Taliban are western inventions that aren't Arab or Muslim. They were created by western powers for western interests (and hell, even if they weren't that wouldn't justify shit) and should never be used as a reason to automatically suspect our Muslim, Jewish and Arab siblings. These are groups that's exist irrespective of this and require our respect all the same.

I'm staunchly antifascist, pro/ part of the Intifada and for a one state solution with a free Palestine that includes all and respects all equally. Doing that means, fundamentally, that we can't use the weapons and tactics of the western colonial entities; of hate, of demonising an entire culture, language and people. We have to be better.

Just as we have to be against the Bush administration's dehumanisation of Arabs and Muslims, and their targetting of the entire race, various cultures, religion and language, we have to actually put in work to not let ourselves be taken in by western antisemetism that is deeply ingrained within our society as well. There are many stigmas in western society around Jews, and we cannot let it be suddenly exempt from scrutiny because we decide one is okay while the other is not. Both are equally bad, if not good indicators that these same people likely have anti Arab and anti Muslim beliefs internalised as well. They often go hand on hand from what I've seen of liberal racists who have said "I'm not racist" then proceeded to say they think Muslims are all homophobic and that all religions are bad because "Muslims created ISIS" without realising the horrific racism in that. It's these same people who often say "all Jews are responsible and must stand up against Israel or they're actually Zionists". It's the same logic and it always comes back to a general internalisation of racism. That is something we, as leftists, must fight against.

Like, the same people who now say "I have to check and make sure the Jews I know aren't Zionists" are also the same people who have said "I think Arab Americans deserve to see Gaza get flattened because they didn't vote blue". Like it's the same old racist shit and the same post Bush suspicion based on "all Muslims and Arabs are ISIS right?" It's the same shit, like modern Israel, ISIS, (and I'd also include Iran, Egypt, Afghanistan, etc.) and the Taliban are all entities created/ taken control of by the west and then used by the west to expand their own access to resources. It's the US just expanded so if anything y'all should be way more inherently suspicious of white Americans being the CIA in disguise than Jews all being Mossad and Muslims all being ISIS members. Like they are different things, Zionists aren't Jews and vice versa. Basically, just don't assume shit and listen to antizionist Jews when they call you out on antisemetism. The west has deeply ingrained anrisemetic roots and you all still have to unlearn that shit if you really want a free Palestine and a successful Intifada (both in Palestine and, I hope, for successful land back movements in other western colonised nations).

If you see a Jew celebrating their holidays without mentioning Palestine or condemning Israel? Shut up and let them celebrate. If you see a Muslim celebrating their holidays without condemning ISIS or Afghanistan and Iran's treatment of women? Shut up and let them celebrate. Entire groups of people shouldn't be expected to be held to account and put in all the work of unraveling western colonialism, all because you're already suspicious of anyone who isn't white, atheist or just live differently to you. Respect people and their culture, unlearn western racist imperialist propaganda.

Unlearn that shit and learn to unite under one banner of antifascist resistance that sees all as equal.

[furrysmp]

congrats to everyone that is still following me after I saw I had way too many followers to not have at least one antisemitic person following me, the fact that you don't think I murder children for fun is truly a comfort

[lemedstudent2021]

Mohammad is indeed an extremely popular name (i have 5 Mohammads in my family alone, let alone the bajilion other Mohammads i know or am related to).

zionists out here exposing their crimes and how iliterate they are lmho

[lizardsfromspace]

I'm not actually sure what Very Online types think should happen in Palestine and I don't think they're sure either bc what is this

We shouldn't praise a teenager resisting the draft too hard bc. Bc...? I struggle to even parse what's being said here. It's guff about how "the bar is really this low" and then a reminder of how "we are seeing what is happening to Palestinians...and this is what people are uplifting?" but like. What does that mean though

They want Israeli oppression of Palestine to cease, but we can't be happy that a teenager refused to join in that oppression? So what should we do. Should we not encourage teens to resist the draft in a country with mandatory military service, heavy propaganda, and that has organized society to heavily stigmatize resisting military service? No, genuinely, what do they want people to do? We need the occupation to end, but also can't support anyone who's fighting for that to happen, since uhhh is the bar really this low??? Would it have been better if he joined the IDF

(do people not know Israel has mandatory military service? I've seen people agreeing with this by saying "refusing to join is the bare minimum, deciding to enlist is horrific". But they're not enlisting, it's conscription. Do they think this person enlisted then withdrew or something...? And why would that not be worth celebrating???)

The answer is ofc this person hasn't really thought about any of this. It's just raging id and an idea that engaging in online discourse is what's truly helpful. It's like the people who treated Hozier as if he was some pro-genocide goon for saying there needs to be "peace" in a statement far more condemnatory than most, since...I still don't know. "How can you talk about peace when one side's oppressing the other?" Well ending that is what peace is, definitionally speaking. How else will it end but with a treaty

The scenario here seems to be, we need the genocide and occupation to end. But also we can't support any Israelis trying to stop it, and should be sus of activism in general. Also we can't talk about "peace" in any way. We just need to post about how it should happen

Anyway when people pointed this out they instantly locked replies and said the "kumbaya libs found it 💔"

It reminds me of those people who swarm any story about Russian anti-war activists by saying it doesn't matter unless they personally assassinate Putin. Like cool. I guess people in the oppressor state should just do nothing to oppose it then if they can't fix anything. Screaming at someone who refuses to join the military that it's actually very problematic that they aren't joining in the oppression, when there's so much oppression to oppose instead of praising them for refusing to join the oppression

[anarcho-commeownism]

Many people are saying that liberals are finally asking for a ceasefire because of the death of a few white people—and while that’s partially true, there’s also more to it than that. Because white people HAVE died for Palestine before with either little reaction from the media or blatant cover-ups. There are several other factors in play here that serve to underline their whiteness and make the situation more pressing to the ruling class.

These people were from the World Central Kitchen, an organization founded by a very well connected chef that has historically been very neutral and well respected. There is NO way to spin them as “Hamas-allied” or whatever so-called “Israel” would have liked to say.

The attack was clearly targeted, and there’s literally no way for so-called “Israel” to frame this as an accident because it was just so blatant that even American dems can’t turn a blind eye to it.

This wasn’t the sole trigger. This was just the boiling point from MONTHS of advocacy, marches, ballot protests, and the sharp decline in support for the democratic party and the Biden administration. We must acknowledge the effect that American protests have had on the positions of these politicians. (It’s certainly depressing that the sheer scale of death and destruction wasn’t enough, but these politicians only listen when their money is on the line and no matter how much money AIPAC sends them, they won’t get a lick of it if Americans don’t vote for them.)

It is better late than never, especially in situations like this, but these politicians will get no praise from me. This should have happened months ago, and the only reason it’s happening now is because the WCK attack was the final drop in the bucket. The Biden admin not so quietly shifted their language to calling for a ceasefire weeks ago, even if only a temporary one—it was inevitable that Israel would eventually fuck up on a significant enough scale to push them further.

And, well. We all knew the US would be the deciding factor in whether or not this genocide continues. That’s the thing about being the world’s numero uno military superpower. Everyone fucking listens to you, for better or for worse. (Usually worse.)

[atwoodsfemalefantasy]

some words on Kamala Harris

listen, put all your doubts aside, democrats and anti-trump republicans. doubting Kamala will get us nowhere. and i'm here to tell you that she can do it. some facts about Kamala

-she's already surpassed where Biden was in the polls, and she only has a 38% favorability rating, which means she has room to grow. she can surpass trump

-she's only 59. she's smart as hell. she will make trump look just as stupid and old as he is. the only reason trump looks semi-competent right now is because he was paired next to Biden, who was well meaning but so old that Trumps stupidity was underrated. but get Kamala on the stand? he'll look as stupid as he is

-Kamala has a deep history of asking tough questions. she isn't afraid to be tough and grill people when necessary. she will ask trump tough questions that point out his inadequacy and will either force him to respond and prove his stupidity and bigotry or will confuse him enough to again prove his stupidity

-Kamala has the money and the good reputation from Bidens term, but can't be held accountable for the mistakes. this is a major advantage

-Kamala will hopefully catch those voters who hate trump but also didn't like biden.

-Kamala appeals to women. women make up more than half of our population, and if women get out to vote for Kamala, she can win

look, Kamala Harris is not perfect. but can you think of one single president who was? Washington owned slaves. Lincoln suspended the 1st amendment. Obama, who i openly praise, made some fucked up decisions with those drones. Biden was great until he supported a genocide (also, as much as i hate what's happening in Palestine, Biden might have information that explains his decision. supporting Israel might be keeping America safe. not that that makes it okay, but just saying, he's not perfect, but he's not the worst) but you know what? every president has their flaws. and Trump? he's MADE of flaws. any small problem you have with Kamala Harris, i can guarantee you'll have so much more with Trump. she might not be absolutely perfect, but she's our best option. a vote for Kamala is a vote for freedom.

[qqueenofhades]

Hi! This question has been noodling in my head for a few weeks, and I’ve been really curious to hear your opinion. I’ve appreciated your very thoughtful commentary on the ways the online left in particular have hurt the real and concerted efforts that have been made to navigate through the Gaza war in support of Palestine. I’ve seen a lot of outrage online about Biden bypassing congress in order to make another emergency weapons sale to Israel, which does indeed read as counter to helping to the Palestinians facing endless and indiscriminate violence. I understand that you might not want to answer this ask, because the work that you already do in your life offline and the work that you do here on tumblr to respond to and explain these issues is exhausting enough. Thanks so much for your time and your thoughtful contributions! It’s always really helped me remember to slow down and think critically about the media I consume.

Because you have asked this thoughtfully and in good faith, I will return the favor and give you a careful and extensive answer to the best of my ability. However, obligatory top-of-post disclaimer that I will disable reblogs at the first hint of any wankery in the notes and I will not answer any follow-ups or secondary asks at this time (unless I decide to do so, but I engage with this topic sparingly, judiciously, and only in small doses, so don't count on it).

First, let me say that the moment, I disagree with substantial portions of how Biden is handling the two main foreign-policy crises (Ukraine and Gaza). In regard to Ukraine, I think he's backed off, taken his foot off the gas, and otherwise given Republicans ammunition to keep delaying or watering down a new aid bill, is refusing to disburse military aid packages from the $4 billion of funding remaining that was previously approved by Congress, hasn't sent long-range ATACMS and other critical military hardware that might bring the war to an end sooner, and is not (as of the moment, though recent reporting suggests this might change) pushing hard enough for frozen Russian assets to be transferred to Ukraine for military and/or humanitarian financial assistance. However, I am also aware (unlike, it seems, much of the left-leaning internet) that I am basing these judgments only on my personal impressions, on what is reported (or not reported) in the media (which has plenty of its own problems) and otherwise what is formed in my role as an ordinary American citizen without any kind of special, classified, high-level, or government access. I know nothing more than any of you, and I also know that a lot of what goes on behind closed doors does not appear on Political Twitter and/or the Washington Post or the Guardian or Daily Kos or whatever other aggregate sources of information I or any left-leaning person typically consumes. So it's highly possible (and this is my cautious academic instinct speaking) that I do not, in fact, have a full picture of events. There are also contributing factors that Biden cannot simply handwave aside, even if he did, say, dip back into the $4 billion pot in the meantime. Congress will need to pass a new funding bill for Ukraine aid and the MAGA Republicans have been enthusiastically blocking it to the point where Putin's cronies on Russian state TV praise them effusively for it. We all know about the Republicans and Russia's mutual love affair. So.

The same goes for Gaza, and even more because we have already had reporting about how the Biden administration is walking a behind-the-scenes tightrope in a number of seemingly impossible tasks: keeping the war from spreading to a larger theater, pressuring Netanyahu to dial down, y'know, the rampant genocide (when Netanyahu notoriously doesn't like Biden, was very close with Trump, and would be happy to keep the war going in order to boost Trump's chances of being re-elected and save Netanyahu himself from his own criminal prosecutions), and pursuing a complex policy toward the state of Israel that does not follow the antisemitic Western Online Left's fever dream of "Israel suddenly disappears overnight and falls into the ocean and all Jews die or disappear." We have had multiple credibly sourced reports about this. Blinken is back in the Middle East right now trying to keep the war from spreading. The US under Biden has criticized Israel's essentially empty policy document for post-war Gaza as not being remotely feasible (because it's so vague) and gone so far as to voice support for a two-state solution with Palestinian self-determination (which is itself quite radically different from previous administrations). However, they have also vetoed UN ceasefire resolutions and other essentially meaningless political theater (the UN as a whole has been ruthlessly exposed in the last few years for being completely useless) that are easy to gin up outrage about, and that's what the internet focuses on, rather than any of the other complicated actions taking place.

All of this is to say that no, in fact, I don't blindly support everything the Biden administration is doing in regard to either Ukraine or Israel right now, but I actually have a sense of real-world perspective about it and understand that there are certain immutable realities that we are working with and which will not be erased by some absolute jackasses yelling at Biden in a historically black church at the commemoration of an anti-black terrorist attack. Likewise, as I've said it before and I'll say it again, and as plenty of other people have noticed and pointed out, the Western left is using this as an orgy of pseudo-revolutionary fervor that focuses on using Hamas as a proxy for their own fantasies of violent uprising against their own governments. Because while yes, anti-zionism and antisemitism are two distinct things and represent different aims and goals, it's become more or less irrelevant in allegedly pro-Palestine Western leftist spaces. It's just increasingly rabid, accelerationist, and nihilistic antisemitism all the time, or the obvious usage of "Zionist" to mean "Jew." It's not good. There is no concept of actual restorative justice for Palestinians or other people, such as Ukrainians, Syrians, Uyghurs, Taiwanese, etc, either undergoing genocide or facing the threat of it, because Western leftists have latched onto this cause solely as a stick to beat the Democratic Party with and have no actual moral interest or concern in stopping genocide elsewhere in the world or repudiating it as a method overall. They just want the state of Israel (which they characterize as a "proxy state for white western colonialism" despite the many, many things historically, religiously, and politically wrong with that statement, because it means it now Contains the Right Buzzwords to Oppose It) to be destroyed altogether in the name of "opposing colonialism," but it really seems to be all about opposing Jews. Hmm.

Simply put, Biden is not ever going to pursue a policy of "let's totally abandon Israel tomorrow, never sell it any weapons or allow it to defend its own civilians, and agree that Hamas is actually a good representation or advocate for the Palestinian people" in the way a number of Western Online Leftists seem to think he should do. There is still the fact that Israeli civilians do exist and that Hamas has continued to launch missiles at them daily, inconvenient as that fact might be for the Hamas fanboys (and fangirls) who now populate much of what passes for Western leftist discourse spaces. (Either that or they don't care, because in their view, Israeli civilians are fully acceptable collateral damage by virtue of simply living in Israel in the first place, which -- yikes. Fucking yikes. That is all.) The number of people professing to be lifelong leftists who are Just Shocked at all the antisemitism, or thinking that any and all antisemitism is just artificially introduced into leftist spaces by bad-faith right-wing/Nazi psyops either has not spent any actual time around leftists, or (more likely) simply does not listen to what they openly say. The antisemitism is virulent, constant, and only getting worse. On the most basic level, regardless of the other difficulties around the founding of Israel as a state in 1948 and the fact that doing so on some of the most bitterly religiously, politically, ethnically, and culturally contested territory in the world for over two thousand years was always going to be a massive clusterfuck, the fact of its immediate post-Holocaust creation simply cannot be ignored the way many Online Leftists do. Israel exists because of the worst antisemitic mass murder in recorded history (and that's a high bar). That fact must be incorporated into any actual discussions about its right either to exist or to protect its own civilians. But this gets turned into "Israel exists only as a puppet state of white western colonialists" which is just bad on so, so many levels.

The collective Western Online Leftist feeling seems to be that Hamas are innocent and wronged freedom fighters who are begging for a ceasefire and the cruel Israelis aren't granting them one. This is not true. Hamas has rejected multiple ceasefire opportunities, and continued to launch missiles and retaliatory attacks, because they are terrorists and they do not want or represent any serious opportunity to negotiate in the framework of western liberal democracy. They are treated as helpless woobified blorbos by much of the Western leftist-leaning internet. They are not. In that case, Biden bypassing Congress to sell Israel weapons (which was just something like 100 million of artillery shells, which is not nothing but still not a huge systematic thing like, say, Reagan's Iran-Contra scandal) is not great. I do not support anything Israel is doing to Gaza. It is abhorrent. However, there are reasons for Biden to provide some limited amount of weapons to Israel without congressional approval that do not automatically and mindlessly equate to BIDEN SUPPORTS TOTAL GENOCIDE IN GAZA!!!!!!1 Especially when as I've said, the Online Leftists only care about stopping genocide when it fits their political self-righteousness, and absolutely not at all the rest of the time.

This is representative of the fact that Western Online Leftism has now completed its all-out descent into blind Noam Chomskyism. Chomsky has never met a "leftist" or "anti-Western" genocide he couldn't deny, excuse, or openly cheerlead (going all the way back to the 1970s and Pol Pot/the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia and going up to the minute with Russia/Ukraine and Israel/Palestine). Noam Chomsky is the leftist Henry Kissinger. His ethics and morals are equally abhorrent, he's just as willing to justify total genocide in the name of advancing his preferred political ideology, and while there were (justifiably) celebrations and gloating memes across Tumblr when Kissinger finally bit the dust, Chomsky's beliefs are replicated with slavish adoration in many other Tumblr spaces and spread in some form or another to the rest of the website, which now takes them as leftist gospel (and let's not even talk about Twitter). This represents my absolute frustration with the fact that Western Online Leftism has devolved to such a degraded, mindless, useless, and malevolent level that "cheerlead for any anti-western/Leftist TM terrorist group or state" is taken to be the be-all and end-all of their moral philosophy. Someone remarked that ISIS peaked too early; if they were still at the height of their powers today, they would have a legion of devoted white so-called progressive Twitter users shilling earnestly and angrily for them, and Christ, isn't that the fucking truth.

I know we live in a hard, frightening, complex, and difficult world, and it's hard to sort out what our moral responsibility and action should be at any given time, especially since the answer is always so frustratingly partial and incomplete. Nobody of basic good sense and decency wants to see Gaza leveled while the Israeli state continues to apply a number of violently cruel collective punishments even outside the actual daily bombing of civilians. But for the love of god, let's get rid of the idea that the continued mindless violence doesn't benefit Hamas (because it does; unsurprisingly, sympathy for their cause has soared in Gaza) as much as it does Israel, or that Hamas is some kind of benevolent peacemaker that is being thwarted by the cruel imperialist US/West. And going back to the incident that prompted you to send me this ask: white leftists have often and repeatedly demonstrated their withering disdain for black people, Democratic voters, "mainstream" Americans, and anyone else doesn't buy into the twisted tankie fantasy land where getting rid of Biden would somehow be a massive coup for social justice (by getting Trump, now openly announcing at every turn that he will be a dictator, back into office! Very praxis, much justice. Wow.)

In short: if you, a white person, stand up in Mother Emanuel AME -- one of the most sacred sites for Black churchgoers, who are indeed often heavily Democratic voters -- in the middle of a remembrance service for victims of white supremacist terrorism, after the Black pastor has asked you not to protest inside the church out of respect for the Black community coming together to relive its trauma -- just so you can heckle Biden and feel good about yourself, then Jesus Christ. You don't care about restorative justice for people of color, or literally any justice at all, much less "stopping genocide." You just want to use them as props for your Chomsky cosplay revolutionary fantasies and your sense of self-righteous superiority over literally everyone else, regardless of the real-world consequences. So I have no hesitation whatsoever in telling those people to get fucked. Often and repeatedly.

[matan4il]

I just saw with my 2 fucking eyes ST calling Bassem Tamimi a peace activist, the guy who made his child go confront IDF soldiers for clout aand thinks stone throwing - which kills people, including friendly fire between Palestinians - is so cool

Nonnie, I am... You know that thing where you just smile wide, because reality is too much to deal with, and you just have to detach from it for a minute? That's me right now.

I mean, one of the things I've noted over the years is that often, the worst takes from Standing Together's leaders are posted on their personal social media accounts rather than the official ones, which makes it a bit harder to explain why the notion of the movement is great, while what they do in practice is awful and anti-Israeli. So when I got your ask I was wondering on which private account they posted that, but no. They posted it on an official ST account. There is not enough 'face palm' in the world for this.

Bassem Tamimi was arrested in October due to suspicion that he was aiding terrorist activity against Israel. If you ask me, he should have been arrested for child abuse as well, the way he's used his kids, pushing them repeatedly at soldiers to gain clout among the anti-Israel crowd, and praising them when they got arrested for violent terrorist activity. He has also generally encouraged rock throwing terrorist attacks.

The ST post claims that Bassem advocates for non-violent resistance, which is an absolute lie. He supports rock throwing at Israelis, which IS a violent act (funny how for the anti-Israel crowd, Israeli words are violence, but Palestinians throwing rocks at Israelis, which has killed more than once, isn't. For some reason, I have never seen any of the people claiming that rock throwing is a form of non-violent resistance volunteering to be its physical targets, I wonder why. Anyway, reminder that when it comes to non-Israelis, people have no issue calling deaths caused by rock throwing "murder," even when executed by teenagers, or calling out the terrorizing quality of such crimes).

Not to mention that Bassem's own daughter, Ahed Tamimi (who is mentioned in the same ST post as having been arrested by Israel "multiple times", and who the family has actually sent countless times to confront soldiers in order to film her "bravery" when really, that's child abuse) was arrested twice, the first time for physically assaulting a soldier. The second time was after the Hamas massacre, when Ahed posted on social media, promising that Palestinians will slaughter Jews, and that "you will say what Hitler did to you is a joke" in comparison, that Palestinians will drink the blood of Jews and eat their skulls. Yeah, SO non-violent!

Let's also not forget that Bassem's niece, Ahlam Tamimi, was a terrorist who helped carry out the Sbarro restaurant suicide bombing in 2001, a massacre of 16 people (since the Palestinians insist on counting unborn children when pregnant women get killed in the conflict, I think it's only fair Israelis do the same), leaving another person in a vegetative state for over 20 years. Ahlam's interviews from Israeli prison and after she was freed in a hostage deal are some of the most chilling I've ever seen, and this woman is a "journalist" and an icon for the anti-Israel mob, living in and broadcasting from Jordan, allowing her to help poison the minds of the next generation.

Nothing about the arrests of either Bassem (or Ahed or Ahlam) was arbitrary, unlike the claim in that ST post.

I'm just... beyond sickened. Anyway, this will also go under my Standing Together tag for easy reference, if you ever need it.

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

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

Vice President Kamala Harris walked onto the ABC News debate stage with a mission: trigger a Trump meltdown.

She succeeded.

Former President Donald Trump had a mission too: control yourself.

He failed.

Trump lost his cool over and over. Goaded by predictable provocations, he succumbed again and again.

Trump was pushed into broken-sentence monologues—and even an all-out attack on the 2020 election outcome. He repeated crazy stories about immigrants eating cats and dogs, and was backwards-looking, personal, emotional, defensive, and frequently incomprehensible.

Harris hit pain point after pain point: Trump’s bankruptcies, the disdain of generals who had served with him, the boredom and early exits of crowds at his shrinking rallies. Every hit was followed by an ouch. Trump’s counterpunches flailed and missed. Harris met them with smiling mockery and cool amusement. The debate was often a battle of eyelids: Harris’s opened wide, Trump’s squinting and tightening.

Harris’s debate prep seemed to have concentrated on psychology as much as on policy. She drove Trump and trapped him and baited him—and it worked every time.

Trump exited the stage leaving uncertain voters still uncertain about whether or not he’d sign a national abortion ban. He left them certain that he did not want Ukraine to win its war of self-defense. He accused Harris of hating Israel but then never bothered to say any words of his own in support of the Jewish state’s war of self-defense against Hamas terrorism. In his confusion and reactiveness, he seemed to have forgotten any debate strategy he might have had.

Something every woman watching the debate probably noticed: Trump could not bring himself to say the name of the serving vice president, his opponent for the presidency. For him, Harris was just a pronoun: a nameless, identity-less “she,” “her,” “you.” It’s said that narcissists cope with ego injury by refusing to acknowledge the existence of the person who inflicted the hurt. If so, that might explain Trump’s behavior. Harris bruised his feelings, and Trump reacted by shutting his eyes and pretending that Harris had no existence of her own independent of President Joe Biden, whose name Trump was somehow able to speak.

Hemmed, harried, and humiliated, Trump lost his footing and his grip. He never got around to making an affirmative case for himself. If any viewer was nostalgic for the early Trump economy before its collapse in his final year in office, that viewer must have been disappointed. If a viewer wanted a conservative policy message, any conservative policy message, that viewer must have been disappointed. When asked whether he had yet developed a health-care plan after a decade in politics, Trump could reply only that he had “concepts of a plan.”

Almost from the start, Harris was in control. She had better moments and worse ones, but she was human where Trump was feral. She had warm words for political opponents such as John McCain and Dick Cheney; Trump had warm words for nobody other than Viktor Orbán, the Hungarian strongman whom Trump praised for praising Trump. It was an all-points beatdown, and no less a beating because Trump inflicted so much of it on himself.

At a minimum, this display will put an end to the Trump claim that Harris is a witless nonentity unqualified to engage in debate. Harris met Trump face-to-face before tens of millions of witnesses. She dominated and crushed him, using as her principal tools her self-command and her shrewd insight into the ex-president’s psychic, moral, and intellectual weaknesses.

Will it matter that Harris so decisively won? How can it not? But it may matter more that Trump so abjectly lost to a competitor for whom he could not utter a syllable of respect.

David Frum is a staff writer at The Atlantic.

[thebrightestwitchofherage]

Let me get this Israel killed Raisi theory straight

In case you don't know, Iran's president died yesterday in a plane crash along with the plane's crew and his higher-ups ( ministers, an Imam, etc). While on a flight through foggy mountains.

A year ago, when it was trendy, everybody was talking about how Iran is an awful extremist& misogynistic regime that kills its own people (extreme understatement but bear with me).

Everyone immediately decided that Israel was to blame. Multiple official Israeli sources have said that Israel has nothing to do with it. IDK maybe don't fly a risky flight when all of the important people are on board together???

The violence against the Iranian people doesn't end when it's no longer trending on Western social media.

HE'S LITERALLY CALLED THE BUTCHER OF TEHERAN. A DICTATOR. He's responsible for so many innocent lives ending: Hamas praised Mr Raisi's support of the Palestinian group, while the Tehran-backed Hezbollah movement in Lebanon said it was mourning the death of its protector. (BBC)

Iranians are celebrating* as I write this. *as much as they can

---

Anyways, it's time to listen to this bop

[dchan87]

A year ago today, Hamas butchered 1,200 Israelis, triggering a war in Gaza and another one across Western institutions, campuses, and social media. At American Dreaming, we’ve extensively covered the discourse post-10/7, from the depraved joy the “decolonize” left felt at news of Jews being slaughtered, to the obscene double standards imposed on Israel, to the explosion of full-blown leftist anti-Semitism. We’ve published articles about the young progressives who hate Biden and love bin Laden, the disturbing redefinition of “genocide”, and the absolutely unhinged Western pro-Palistinian activist movement. And after a year of discourse, one thing has been made crystal clear: the political left has an anti-Semitism problem. Everywhere I looked, over these past 12 months, far-left protestors not only tolerated but actively propagated centuries-old anti-Semitism, including celebrating the October 7th massacre and even praising Hitler. It was equal parts disgusting and confusing. How could a movement that, in theory, is supposed to oppose bigotry and racism have so openly embraced it? How did we end up with left-wingers attacking synagogues, creating lists of Zionists, canceling events with “Zionist” participants, defacing Anne Frank memorials, and protesting Israel outside of Auschwitz? How could only half of young adults, by far the most left-leaning age group, disagree with the statement “The Holocaust is a myth”? How did we get to a place where good progressives openly display swastikas, tell Jews to go back to Europe, express the desire to gas them, and perform Hitler salutes? The rhetoric was much the same as it had been for centuries: that Jews are violent, bloodthirsty, imposters — not even Semitic, but a bunch of Europeans playing pretend. Demonstrators held signs with a Star of David in a trash can next to the words “Keep the world clean.” Classic anti-Semitic tropes like the blood libel resurfaced. All of this happened within far-left movements, who now sound eerily like the far right. It’s no wonder that far rightists blend right in at pro-Palestine protests. But why? Integral to the left’s worldview, elaborate theory aside, is solidarity with the underprivileged, be it the poor, ethnic minorities, LGBT people, etc. Logically, the left should be sympathetic to the Jewish people, given their long history of persecution. At a glance, there should be no reason for the hard left to behave functionally the same as neo-Nazis. And yet they do. 

Sadly, anti-Semitism, as one of humanity's oldest hatreds, has never been confined to any one ideology. To understand the history of left-wing anti-Semitism, we must first look back to before the concept of the political “left” even existed.

An Extremely Brief History of Anti-Semitism

In 132 CE, during the apex of Roman imperial power, the Bar Kokhba revolt broke out in the troublesome Roman-controlled province of Judea. Emperor Hadrian solved it with all the subtlety of a sledgehammer. In an outright genocidal war, he utterly crushed Jewish resistance, slaughtering large numbers of Jewish civilians and devastating many towns and villages. The destruction of the Second Temple in 70 CE tends to be more remembered by Jews themselves as the beginning of the diaspora, but the events of 135 were when the Jews truly lost their homeland. Although a small population remained, most fled throughout the Middle East or Europe. 

Hadrian’s actions were not anti-Semitic per se — Rome was just as brutal to any rebellious subject — but it set the Jews up as a people without a land, a people with nowhere to go whose religion and customs made them visibly other. With the rise of Christianity, the relative religious tolerance typical to polytheistic societies faded away, and the Jews faced constant oppression, at best living as second-class citizens. Of course, Christians have a long history of treating their fellow devotees with murderous contempt if they happen to be the wrong kind of Christian. The massacres of the First Crusade that included Christians as well as Muslims and Jews, the expulsion of Protestants from France, the bloody Anglo-Irish conflict, the Anglican church's persecution of Puritans, and so on. Now imagine what it would mean to openly belong to another faith, one deemed heretical by the Church, the supreme arbiter of morality.

Jews were widely barred from “honest” work — leaving niches in fields considered less savory, like money lending, clerking, pawnbroking, and lawyering. Making the most of the niche they had been forced into by these discriminatory laws — although far from all Jews did such work — led in turn to the stereotype of Jews as greedy, bloodsucking parasites who hated and exploited honest Christians, which, of course, led to even more persecution. Jewish populations were expelled from countries multiple times, or faced savage butchery. There were the brutal Rhineland Massacres of the First Crusade in 1096 CE that saw 800 Jews killed, and expulsion from England in 1290, from France in 1306, and from Spain in 1492. It was a vicious cycle of violent intolerance. 

The More Things Change, the More They Stay the Same

In the late 1700s, the birth of European liberalism changed everything. The French Revolution and Napoleon both offered a greater level of religious tolerance toward Jews, making new inroads toward coexistence. After Napoleon’s downfall, despite a rightward reaction, Europe slowly began to liberalize, incorporate Enlightenment values, and move toward democracy. By and large, Jewish people naturally drifted leftward — the monarchist right wing of the 1800s was no friend to them. When socialism made strides decades later, Jews were an influential part of the movement, such as the Bund, a socialist Jewish party in Russia. 

At the same time, many Jews were understandably fed up with the still-rampant anti-Semitism in Europe, and started to dream of returning to their ancestral homeland, and so began the seeds of modern Israel. 

So far, Jews seemed like natural allies to the left, as an oppressed, marginalized underdog if ever there was one. But anti-Semitism is a powerful, deeply rooted force. Vladimir Lenin forcibly dissolved the Bund in 1921, and all those who did not join the Communist Party were forced to flee abroad or face persecution. It only got worse under Stalin, who systematically eradicated Jewish influence wherever he could find it. His Doctors Plot, in which Stalin invented false charges of treason and espionage toward nine doctors, seven of them Jewish, resembled nothing so much as a classic anti-Semitic purge. Indeed, between 1939 and 1941, the Soviet secret police deported tens of thousands of Jews to Siberia and Kazakhstan. Despite Marxism’s pretensions to antiracism, Soviet anti-Semitism, from Party leadership down to the common comrade, was pervasive, and often intertwined “anti-Zionism” with negative stereotypes about Jews.

It was not until after the Holocaust had been exposed to the world that anti-Semitism finally began to become unfashionable, as humanity took a cold, hard look at the logical conclusion to such hatred. But anti-Semitism did not disappear from either end of the political spectrum.

In the 1960s, James Baldwin explained the pronounced anti-Semitism among the black community in the US, which he tied to attitudes of anti-whiteness and an oppressor/oppressed mindset. In the 1970s, influenced by Soviet propaganda, which relentlessly demonized Zionism and Jews, the Australian Union of Students, dominated by young Trostkyites and Maoists, began following suit on Australian university campuses. When Jewish groups protested, they were physically assaulted.

The ferocious “anti-Zionism” of the Western “New Left” was widely seen as a cover for Jew hatred. In Germany, far-left groups in the 1960s and 70s celebrated the deaths of Israeli civilians in terrorist attacks, engaged in anti-Semitic violence, and schemed to bomb a synagogue. In the famous 1976 Entebbe Raid — in which pro-Palestine terrorists hijacked an Air France plane at gunpoint, then released the non-Jewish and non-Israeli passengers to hold the Israelis and Jews hostage — two of the hijackers were German leftists.

Today’s left ought to be unburdened by such bigotries, at least in theory. Unlike their forebears from previous eras, they did not grow up in a social environment where racism was normal and casual prejudice ubiquitous. The average modern far-leftist is highly educated, affluent, and conscious of systemic biases. They ought to know better. So why don’t they?

Like any complex phenomenon, it has no single explanation. Unlike the far right, which has anti-Semitism encoded into its ideological genetics, leftism is not inherently anti-Semitic. But in true horseshoe fashion, they nevertheless end up in the same place.

The Horseshoe of Anti-Semitism

First, the political far left shares an uncomfortable number of basic assumptions about reality with the far right. Both believe that:

A class of moneyed elites control the government, and democracy is a sham maintained by these vaguely defined, malicious elites.

Proper far-left or far-right beliefs (depending) would naturally take root in society if not for an aggressive campaign of materialist propaganda pushed by these shady elites to distract the masses from realizing their true destiny.

Their cause is one that is so vital and so obviously true that any approach to further it is legitimate, whether that means lying, propagandizing, or committing violence.

The liberal West is evil, degenerate, cruel, and exploitative, and must be crushed at all cost to realize this vision.

This antisocial, conspiratorial worldview is inherent to the far left, to a greater or lesser degree. Name a popular myth about how the West is evil, and a leftist will believe it — whether it’s that the US invaded Iraq to steal oil, or that all Western economies are built purely on the exploitation of developing countries, or that our media and government is controlled by sinister three-letter organizations. Such a mindset is incredibly vulnerable to conspiracy theory — and all conspiracy theories ultimately come back to anti-Semitism. 

If you believe the government is controlled by moneyed elites and that the evil force of Zionism has its claws deep in the US government, then the leftist is already 90 percent of the way to being in full agreement with the Nazi. This is how we get university lecturers saying, “Zionists are straight Babylon swine [...] Zionism is beyond a mental illness; it’s a genocidal disease.” It’s how we get progressive screenwriters complaining that “the entertainment industry is ran [sic] by Zionists.” It’s how you get left-wing musicians like Eric Clapton saying, “Israel's running the show, running the world.”

Israel-Palestine is a Uniquely Sore Issue

Second, Israel-Palestine is singularly inflammatory. It takes every problematic tendency the far left already has — shallow performativity, radicalism, narcissism, subordinating truth to ideology, and viciousness toward perceived opponents — and dials it up to eleven. Palestine offers the leftist a classic oppressor-oppressed binary, one that fits the Marxist image of the world perfectly: a cruel, settler-colonialist nation, brutally oppressing a native population, neatly including a white-vs-brown layer of oppression. It also offers a religious layer, where Israel is painted as both a theocracy and a fascistic ethnostate no different from Nazi Germany.

Of course, there are many facts that one must ignore to believe these things. One must ignore that Israel began with legal land purchases, and that among both Israelis and Palestinians you can find people passing for white as well as people who would not. One must ignore that anti-Semitism is on the rise, and that 48 percent of Israel is of Mizrahi (meaning Middle Eastern) origin. One must ignore that Israel is a democracy with Arabs in its parliament, and that the Palestinians harbor many deeply regressive, misogynist, and homophobic values out of touch with modern progressivism.

The Left is Just Too Successful, But Still Needs a Revolution

Third, modern leftism is no longer the struggling worker’s movement it began as. In the early 1900s, the left struggled with real, material problems, such as genuinely unfair wages and labor power imbalances in which employers held all the cards. Protesting for better pay, fewer hours, and more benefits and vacation were real, concrete improvements to fight for. But with these and other battles won — with an eight-hour workday and five-day workweek, with vacation and sick days taken for granted, with LGBT acceptance and racial equality both legally enshrined and culturally mainstream, the modern left had to pivot. Their crusades became less about tangible change in the face of injustice, and more about an opportunity to display righteousness by advancing an incredibly shallow worldview divided between the morally pure and the wicked, with no in-betweens. The ethos of no bad tactics, only bad targets thereby became bad tactics and bad targets.

Jews Just Aren’t Oppressed Enough

Finally, the far left is captured by a narrative in which the underprivileged are the center of attention. There is a foundational leftist belief that the world right now is not only terrible, but actively getting worse due to capitalist exploitation. In this understanding of the world, everything is defined by class struggle between the wealthy, parasitic capitalists, and their victims, the workers, whose labor is exploited for pennies, deliberately keeping the lower classes down. 

When taken to its logical end, we are left with a movement that resents success. So where do Jews fit into this? Well, from this grievance-focused, eternally victimized perspective, the Jewish people are just a bit too white, a bit too financially successful, and a bit too well-integrated to be seen as truly oppressed. Rather they are seen as oppressors. Just as Asians are now “helping white supremacy” because they’re more financially successful than other groups on average, Jews are just not persecuted enough. The far left resents success, and the Jews have shown extraordinary perseverance in their achievements. Indeed, the archetypal Jewish businessman, lawyer, or doctor fits perfectly into the petit-bourgeoisie stereotype the far left so intensely loathes.

What’s left is a movement deeply committed to performative role-playing while eschewing achievable goals, pragmatism, and principles. It’s a dreadful state of affairs. There ought to be room for a left-of-center movement to express a sane pro-Palestinian worldview, but it’s been hijacked by radicals who are as ignorant as they are venomous. Any healthy, open society requires a variety of perspectives represented, but they need to be rooted in reality — not collective guilt, group resentment, and unhinged conspiracism punctuated with Hitler salutes.

In the span of one year, the anti-Zionist far left has done serious and lasting damage to themselves. If they are to avoid becoming simply an inverted variant of neo-Nazism, utterly fringe and dismissed, they must reckon with and expel their radicals, not celebrate them. Is protesting Israel worth trafficking in old anti-Semitic tropes? Is it worth lowering yourself to the level of a fascist? Is it worth an entire political movement with over two hundred years of history? Because if things continue as they are, the left will be left behind, with all sane and decent people having shied away in disgust. Perhaps that’s one faint silver lining of this past year, that the radical left have lunged toward their far-right counterparts on the great trash heap of history. It’s where they belong.

[hilacopter]

I sometimes think online leftists don't actually hate the far-right. Rather they just envy the latter for being able to be a hateful bully without any significant repercussions.

So when the Israel/Palestine and Ukraine/Russia situation came along, they just saw their chance to be monsters without consequences and went for it. Just releasing all of their worst traits because they'd be praised for their lack of nuance and compassion disguised by the image of those two.

I do think there's a lot of merit to your claim, anon. Something I've noticed is that pretty much no group or movement is exempt from hateful ideologies, even the ones opposing hate. The concept of a group, by nature, requires there to be people considered outsiders to said group, and with tribalism being a basic human instinct the attitude towards those considered "other" will always devolve into some sort of hate or discrimination. Most leftist movements, which claim to be fundamentally opposed to hate, actually as much if not more about hating than about loving. We as humans have gotten to a point where we know hate and discrimination is wrong, yet basic psychology denies us from being accepting and tolerant towards all, since it's simply nature to hate. So we have to attempt to rationalize and provide a reason that at least seems logical for why we're intolerant toward this and that. Thus leftist movements just have to find acceptable targets for their hate and vitriol. To put all that in simpler terms, I think the recent wave of leftist antisemitism is very much leftists releasing the pent-up frustration that comes with trying to be a movement based on tolerance and rationality, now that they have an acceptable target in the (((zionists))) they have themselves the ultimate evil they can hate as much as they want without enough of a consequence. Once again repeating the timeless historical pattern of Jews being the reliable scapegoat when the world goes awry.

[screamingfromuz]

People have tried a few approaches to get through to you. I'm going to try another. Why do you think this attack was such a surprise in Israel but not to anyone else on earth? When I ask people I know IRL (In the UK) about this, they say, "I'm shocked by what Hamas are doing but what did Israel expect to happen?" Outside Israel it's clear to everyone that the Gaza Strip situation was going to lead to something like this. You've known about Gaza your whole life, you've know that situation was festering for decades, so why the surprise? How did you think this would end?

i'm emotional, so you won't get a good well researched and structured answer, but an emotional ramble. but you don't want a well researched and organized answer, you want me to cave in call israel a monster colonizer and praise the "brave palestinian freedom fighters". fuck you. or say something you can use to prove how bad all israelis are and how good all palestinians are.

do you know what happened back in the 90s when the news of peace talk broke? the amount of attacks against Israelis grew, the death toll grew. in the four years after the accords the death doll doubled. Palestinian authorities celebrated that "israel gave so much without getting back like fools" and "the only good thing that came out of the accords was the intifada".

so I turn the fucking question to you? what is Israel supposed to do? who are we to talk to to reach peace? or should it dissolve? turn power on my life to people who stated they would like to kill or expel all the Jews? give more resources to a terrorist group? you saw where they put the money they get.

why the fuck do you think Israel exist? because we learned that we can never be free nor safe to be ourselves under the control of others. do you know that between 1948-1951 about 300000 MENA Jews became refugees? and the only reason nobody cares is because Israel took them in, while the whole arab world was happy to leave the Palestinians to rot. do you want a fucking list of every atrocity that was made during this conflict? because both sides have a very long one and the big difference is that Israel fucking won the 1948 war!

and of-fucking-coarse we knew something big was gonna happen! it was in the news for months! people have been screaming at the assholes in charge for so long! it doesn't make it less horrifying! it doesn't matter that we knew that Hamas are stealing all the recourse to make missiles and are going to take advantage of the chaos in israel, it doesn't matter that our extremists are feeding their extremists, cause IT DOESN'T MAKE IT FUCKING RIGHT! we knew Hamas will do some horrid war crime but didn't want to think that people will take whole cities hostage and kidnap and murder hundreds! nobody wanted it to become a fucking war you piece of condescending shit!

we wanted the sane people of both sides to take over and work together! we were hoping to use the near municipal elections to get people who support cooperative living in to the city councils so we can change stuff for the better and fight the anti peace movements of both sides! and maybe gain enough power so in the next parliamentarian elections we will get some decent people that would kickstart the peace process and support palestinian communities into the cabinet! do you know how hard we worked to support Israeli-Palestinian lists for the municipal races? how much effort is put by people to try and make things better?

so i'm gonna ask you again, what was Israel supposed to fucking do?

and If you say "to stop existing" I want you to know that you just exposed yourself as a supporter of genocide.

[misshorrorotaku]

This blog is so embarrassing, its a fantastic example of why greasy fandom shut-ins don't have politics grounded in the real world.

You're the equivalent of a syphilis-infected Victorian fawning over pulp novels and publicly praising the Congo Free State. New century, same idiots. I'm Jewish, and I want you to keep any comments about my people out of your fucking mouth.

I hope the coming decades prove to you how backwards of a stance you have on Israel. When you're much older, you will feel a chill to your very core. I want you remember how many opportunities you had in 2024 to do what was right. I hope it haunts you forever. Maybe, one day, it will hurt enough to make you treat beaten-down, colonized people with some empathy. You're a fucking demon.

Nah, when I'm much older and I see how this conflict has either gone one of two directions: The destruction of Hamas and the 2 state solution, or the far more unlikely destruction of Israel and mass genocide of the Jewish people...

I will know I was one of the people who didn't fall for terrorist propaganda. I will know I will not be one of the people who have to try to backtrack and act like I couldn't possibly have seen Hamas butchering every Jew in Israel coming the second Israel no longer had the power to defend itself.

I will know I stood with the Jewish when they needed me to. And I will be fucking proud of that. And disgusted with all of you, who belittled and insulted everyone who saw Hamas' lies for what they are. Who sided with terrorists, attacked Jews across the world and cheered when Israeli's were butchered.

[doberbutts]

just a random guy w no stake in this but yr guy also fully regurgitated israel’s/zionist lies abt the “””misfired rocket””” hitting the hospital as if there isn’t documented evidence of israel admitting to - wanting to do that - doing that - expressing joy at the fact that they did that. the israeli govt spent days saying they were gonna bomb a hospital, bombed a hospital, /said they bombed the hospital/, and then changed their story to “misfired rocket” among other things (not a single hamas rocket is capable of that kind of destruction…) when they got flack for it. and Avi has yet to retract that statement despite it being another blatant lie from the israeli govt.

& obv this is much smaller but when pointed out that what ngaiman said that was zionist (“israel has the right to exist”, which he reconfirmed was still his stance), avi doubled down on that…not being zionism. and said ppl only call gaiman a zionist bc he’s jewish (which.. sure some ppl do, but the claim that a settler colonial state (or any state, tbh) has an inherent “right” to exist, and specifically that Israel has a “right” to exist, is literally zionism. which avi seems to think is not.)

i don’t think he’s a zionist himself but he certainly repeating a lot of zionist bs uncritically

I literally just got an article this morning talking about the forensics going on regarding the hospital bombing, from CNN, citing multiple sources saying the same thing; that it was a misfired rocket originating from somewhere in Gaza and probably not intentional, with all parties with munitions denying that it was theirs despite the firing of rockets nearby from all of said parties. No shrapnel or casings have yet been recovered and until that is recovered there is no way to know for sure where the device was made or where it came from.

So unless you are leaning on the antisemitic claim that Jews control the media, either all of CNN's sources are wrong including the Palestinian ones, or he's literally just repeating what multiple sources have been saying as of this morning.

Also conveniently you're leaving out that he's also stated that it doesn't matter where the device came from, the targetting of hospitals and other civilian centers is abhorrent and an immediate ceasefire needed to be called the moment it happened. Weird how he's not praising it, he's stating what the forensic team on site is reporting, and he's stating that no matter who is at fault they shouldn't be involving peaceful civilians.

As for whether or not Israel should exist... where exactly do you want the Israelis to go? A significant number of them were born there, with ancestors that originated there, as Arabic people living alongside Palestinians. They do have just as much right to be there as Palestinians because they have common ancestry with Palestinians. Those that came from elsewhere largely were forcibly expelled as an act of genocide- "going back where (they) came from" means going back to somewhere that's made it plain they are not welcome and they'll be killed on sight. They went to Israel because they were told that was the only correct choice for them.

Also I think it is incredibly dicey to be wielding "Jews are inherent outsiders that need to go back where they came from" because that is an antisemitic statement that has echoed across history ANDDDDD I think it's uhhhh incredibly hilarious as afronative to hear fucking Americans saying this when we're on stolen land ourselves with a government that is still trying to wipe out the few indigenous people we have left and sweep its continued atrocities under the rug.

What's that saying about glass houses and stones? If you're on American soil and you're not indigenous, how about you go back where you came from? Oh? You were born here? You have a family history here? You have deep ties to the area and can't just uproot your entire life? It's a little more complicated than just getting on a plane back to Europe or Asia or Africa? Hmm. Interesting. Don't you know that makes you complicit in genocide? No no no, it doesn't matter that your family was fleeing genocide yourselves, or that your ancestors were forced to come here, or that you personally took no part in the ongoing political war being waged against the dwindling number of Natives we have left. You don't belong here. You need to be forcibly detained and expelled. Maybe even kept in a cage for a while until we figure out what to do with you.

Whoop. But that's the silent part you're not saying. You can call it Zionist if you want. But I think people need to think a little more critically about the actual logistics of what caused this problem in the first place, before firing off about it. Especially not when a lot of these talking points are at their heart incredibly antisemitic.