#especially if you're not european nor from from a european settler state

[millionsofbooks]

something about the tiktok ban that i haven't really seen people here talking about is the experience of tiktok users not from the usa, which was, as far as i can tell, on the whole, very positive. it was actually really nice to, for a short period of time, be on a major social media network and able to interact with people across the world without usamericans constantly inserting themselves into every conversation.

usamericans kind of take over people's fyp regardless of where you're from. this is partly to do with the fact that the creators fund is only available to usamericans so most of the shitty content farms are from the us. then there's also the cultural aspect of the fact that being a citizen of the most powerful empire in the world is a significant privilege, and also a privilege that 99% of usamericans are seemingly unable to acknowledge, plus the us centrism and exceptionalism, plus the constant need to cast themselves as the underdog, and, well. it's annoying.

so, like. everything of what i've seen (which is not to say that other opinions don't exist, just that i haven't seen them) is that it was really nice when the usamericans were gone, and it kind of sucks that they're back.

[redrockgal]

I'm glad you brought this up because this is a super devisive point of conversation. To put the political system into a timeline, Isreal as a state has only existed for around 75 years. Many of the settlers there who hold Isreal as their country, home, and motherland (around 74%) are ashkenazi Jews, as in Eastern European. Many others are mixed with white British that held colony lands in Palestine (that they would sell to Isreal upon its formation). That is not to say there are no indigenous Jews. Many Palestinians were and are Jewish. Many Isrealis are of Palestinian descent. It is impossible to occupy a land for decades and have no resulting mixed people.

Here in America, there were multiple tribes that worked alongside colonial settlers, as they felt they could see the writing on the wall and if they assimilated with the occupying power and sold out the more resistant tribes they'd be spared from inevitable violent domination. There was also a heavy monetary incentive as well. This happened also with the Slave Trade, with an emphasis on monetization. This happens with every occupying force, there will always be some indigenous people who choose that. That did not stop them from genociding us, but it did stop a lot of us from identifying as indigenous and disappearing culturally and in the bloodlines. I bring this up because this is also not something that Americans are taught in schools, we too are fed propaganda against this, and you are absolutely right, there are many people in Isreal that ARE indigenous to the land, and many of them have been Jews for as long as their families have been around.

However, their existence does not justify the invading government/state nor does it excuse their actions. Isreal is also a concept, an idea of a people. The children of Isreal, the Isrealites mentioned in Abrahamic texts are not a 1 to 1 recollection of the people who now call themselves Isreal. The state is named after the concept, not the other way around. There were many American settlers (Mormon/LDS especially) during western expansion that rationalized that white settlers were actually indigenous to the land and taking back a space that real indigenous people had been "keeping warm" for them.

This kind of propaganda didn't take off very well, as LDS and the idea that the holy lands were in the continental USA was a niche idea at best, but for Isreal that rhetoric sticks because Jerusalem has and does have a real tie to major world religions. For the USA, western expansion happened during a time when Indigenous people were seen by the western world as subhuman, there was no real reason to justify brutalizing "savages" and bringing about a christian order. For Isreal and Palestine, the people living there are already Christians and Jews, during a time when figures like Malcom X could see the occupation happen firsthand 20 years into it.

There had to have been more justification "it was ours first" being a popular one. This is another reason, other than for a "this is what a perfect Jew friendly world looks like (dont look behind that wall)" style recruitment, birthright becomes ever popular for kids and teens. It is important to tell a version of history to young people so they grow up internalizing the message. Which is why I am really happy that you are asking these questions, regardless if you end up agreeing or disagreeing with me or anybody else, the most important thing you can do is ask questions and be critical of the narratives you're being presented with thru different institutions.

I’m not Jewish so feel free to call me out if I’m overstepping but the antisemitism that a lot of our more “leftist”/anti-israel friends hold is super concerning to us, I don’t really know how to call it out, but sometimes I just feel like if you replaced the words Zionist/Israeli (we really hate the implication that all Israeli’s are “bad people” or in support of the war just because they live in Israel so it really bugs us when they say Israeli to mean that) with Jewish you’d get a 1 for 1 regurgitation of propaganda and stereotypes and it’s really concerning from people who claim to be socially progressive and in support of minorities. It’s like really disturbing to see this happen to people that I thought I knew.