#i just wanted it to be over and i wanted israelis to leave and never come back

[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

[jewishvitya]

A pro-Palestine Jew on tiktok asked those of us who were raised pro-Israel, what got us to change our minds on Palestine. I made a video to answer (with my voice, not my face), and a few people watched it and found some value in it. I'm putting this here too. I communicate through text better than voice.

So I feel repetitive for saying this at this point, but I grew up in the West Bank settlements. I wrote this post to give an example of the extent to which Palestinians are dehumanized there.

Where I live now, I meet Palestinians in day to day life. Israeli Arab citizens living their lives. In the West Bank, it was nothing like that. Over there, I only saw them through the electric fence, and the hostility between us and Palestinians was tangible.

When you're a child being brought into the situation, you don't experience the context, you don't experience the history, you don't know why they're hostile to you. You just feel "these people hate me, they don't want me to exist." And that bubble was my reality. So when I was taught in school that everything we did was in self defense, that our military is special and uniquely ethical because it's the only defensive military in the world - that made sense to me. It slotted neatly into the reality I knew.

One of the first things to burst the bubble for me was when I spoke to an old Israeli man and he was talking about his trauma from battle. I don't remember what he said, but it hit me wrong. It conflicted with the history as I understood it. So I was a bit desperate to make it make sense again, and I said, "But everything we did was in self defense, right?"

He kinda looked at me, couldn't understand at all why I was upset, and he went, "We destroyed whole villages. Of course we did. It was war, that's what you do."

And that casual "of course" stuck with me. I had to look into it more.

I couldn't look at more accurate history, and not at accounts by Palestinians, I was too primed against these sources to trust them. The community I grew up in had an anti-intellectual element to it where scholars weren't trusted about things like this.

So what really solidified this for me, was seeing Palestinian culture.

Because part of the story that Israel tells us to justify everything, is that Palestinians are not a distinct group of people, they're just Arabs. They belong to the nations around us. They insist on being here because they want to deny us a homeland. The Palestinian identity exists to hurt us. This, because the idea of displacing them and taking over their lands doesn't sound like stealing, if this was never theirs and they're only pretending because they want to deprive us.

But then foods, dances, clothing, embroidery, the Palestinian dialect. These things are history. They don't pop into existence just because you hate Jews and they're trying to move here. How gorgeous is the Palestinian thobe? How stunning is tatreez in general? And when I saw specific patterns belonging to different regions of Palestine?

All of these painted for me a rich shared life of a group of people, and countered the narrative that the Palestininian identity was fabricated to hurt us. It taught me that, whatever we call them, whatever they call themselves, they have a history in this land, they have a right to it, they have a connection to it that we can't override with our own.

I started having conversations with leftist friends. Confronting the fact that the borders of the occupied territories are arbitrary and every Israeli city was taken from them. In one of those conversations, I was encouraged to rethink how I imagine peace.

This also goes back to schooling. Because they drilled into us, we're the ones who want peace, they're the ones who keep fighting, they're just so dedicated to death and killing and they won't leave us alone.

In high school, we had a stadium event with a speaker who was telling us about a person who defected from Hamas, converted to Christianity and became a Shin Bet agent. Pretty sure you can read this in the book "Son of Hamas." A lot of my friends read the book, I didn't read it, I only know what I was told in that lecture. I guess they couldn't risk us missing out on the indoctrination if we chose not to read it.

One of the things they told us was how he thought, we've been fighting with them for so long, Israelis must have a culture around the glorification of violence. And he looked for that in music. He looked for songs about war. And for a while he just couldn't find any, but when he did, he translated it more fully, and he found out the song was about an end to wars. And this, according to the story as I was told it, was one of the things that convinced him. If you know know the current trending Israeli "war anthem," you know this flimsy reasoning doesn't work.

Back then, my friend encouraged me to think more critically about how we as Israelis envision peace, as the absence of resistance. And how self-centered it is. They can be suffering under our occupation, but as long as it doesn't reach us, that's called peace. So of course we want it and they don't.

Unless we're willing to work to change the situation entirely, our calls for peace are just "please stop fighting back against the harm we cause you."

In this video, Shlomo Yitzchak shares how he changed his mind. His story is much more interesting than mine, and he's much more eloquent telling it. He mentions how he was taught to fear Palestinians. An automatic thought, "If I go with you, you'll kill me." I was taught this too. I was taught that, if I'm in a taxi, I should be looking at the driver's name. And if that name is Arab, I should watch the road and the route he's taking, to be prepared in case he wants to take me somewhere to kill me. Just a random person trying to work. For years it stayed a habit, I'd automatically look at the driver's name. Even after knowing that I want to align myself with liberation, justice, and equality. It was a process of unlearning.

On October, not long after the current escalation of violence, I had to take a taxi again. A Jewish driver stopped and told me he'll take me, "so an Arab doesn't get you." Israeli Jews are so comfortable saying things like this to each other. My neighbors discussed a Palestinian employee, with one saying "We should tell him not to come anymore, that we want to hire a Jew." The second answered, "No, he'll say it's discrimination," like it would be so ridiculous of him. And the first just shrugged, "So we don't have to tell him why." They didn't go through with it, but they were so casual about this conversation.

In the Torah, we're told to treat those who are foreign to us well, because we know what it's like to be the foreigner. Fighting back against oppression is the natural human thing to do. We know it because we lived it. And as soon as I looked at things from this angle, it wasn't really a choice of what to support.

[girlfictions]

something i’ve been thinking about lately is like. growing up muslim right after 9/11 is something i’d never really reflected on much because it was all i’d ever known — at 5, my friend’s mum didn’t let her invite me to her birthday party because i was the only brown girl in our class, at 12, my classmates would joke about my family being part of isis, at 16, my dad was interrogated by american airport security for hours — and it always stung and it always hurt but it was just the way things were because the western world hated muslims. but i don’t think i’ve ever fully comprehended the extent to which we were hated until now.

palestine is being turned into a mass graveyard. every single day there are new photos of the atrocities being carried out against them and videos of them pleading for help and still those who can actually intervene turn a blind eye. israel is claiming to only be targeting hamas “terrorists” while bombing a refugee camp. israeli police raided and assaulted a non-zionist jewish neighbourhood. israeli soldiers are posting tiktoks of them torturing captured palestinians. this is not a complicated issue and it never has been. ethnic cleansing is being committed right in front of us. and yet the western world leaders refuse to call for a ceasefire.

and while zionist organisations accuse pro-palestine demonstrations of anti-semitism, while zionist celebrities insist that they’re afraid to leave their mansions in los angeles, a six year old muslim boy was stabbed to death and his mother wounded in the same attack in chicago. a muslim doctor was murdered while sitting outside her apartment complex in texas. hundreds of peaceful protesters have been arrested (many of whom have been jewish). despite what zionists want you to believe, this is not a jewish/muslim conflict. i have so much love and gratitude to my brave jewish brothers and sisters all over the world who are condemning israel for their actions.

ultimately, israel have been granted impunity by the west. they have slaughtered thousands upon thousands of innocent palestinians. they have bombed hospitals and schools indiscriminately. they have used white phosphorus, violating the geneva convention. they have completely eradicated nearly 900 bloodlines. how many more need to be wiped out? how many more children need to be buried underneath the rubble? how many more doctors need to be confronted with the bodies of their own family members? how many more journalists need to detail the horrific acts of violence they are witnessing? what more can be done to the palestinian people that has not been done already?

i truly believe that palestine will be free one day. i believe the palestinian people will receive the justice they finally deserve. but what breaks my heart is how much they have suffered and will continue to suffer before they are deemed worthy of help. and it would be to all of our detriment if we ignored how much of a factor palestine being a predominantly muslim state has played into the way the world has reacted to their genocide.

[fairuzfan]

the reason i shared my great-grandmother's story on here a few months ago is not for sympathy or anything, its to illustrate to you just how deeply, deeply anti-Palestinian the idea of zionism is.

i remember my grandmother, the one who watched her mother die in her home, she called us with a plain tone of voice, and she said "she asked to be buried in [her village] but of course the the zionists wouldn't let that happen." the thing that will not leave my head was the way my grandmother said it, the way it just seemed so natural and so obvious to her. my grandmother is *not* a quiet woman, she yells everything she ever says, whether happy or sad but this she said softly. like she was resigned to this, she expected this.

this woman was exiled once from her village, then again from Palestine, then again and again and again and eventually forced to live in poverty in a refugee camp, she knows the 'israeli' state more intimately than anyone i know, she knows what it will and won't allow in its genocidal apparatus and to her it was obvious that they would not respect her mother's body or last wishes. she knew that.

and i always go back to it when i see discussions on here or on twitter or in academia, like you guys (the moderates, the apologists) have never ever spoken to a nakba survivor or a naksa survivor. you don't know just how deeply its affected our families.

so when we ask you to completely reject zionism, when we demand it from allies, we aren't saying this to be stubborn or nonsensical, we're saying it because we know where zionism will lead us. we've been through the "we just want peace" and the "we need to just talk it out" phases already, how can you not think we've been through those phases after 75 years. we've had our meet and greets and our appeals and now we're at literally the worst stage of genocide against our people and you're still insisting on "talking it out" or some variation of it.

the truth of the matter is that we don't have patience for zionism anymore because look where it got us. look where we're at. even soft zionists, you need to stamp those people out from pretending they've got good points, or that you need to build community with them or whatever. we are literally at the worst part of Palestinian history ever, we need to stop pretending there are grey zones to this. Zionist apologists and the like are creating ambiguity that literally gets our families killed under the guise of "complication". I'm sick and tired of watching these same discussions over and over again about how "Israel is a result of antisemitism" when it very much is not. I'm sick of seeing people who know NOTHING about colonization push their own agendas and provide cover for zionists to do whatever they want. Just stop talking about things you don't understand because I promise you, you're directly contributing to the violence you claim to abhor.

[ahmedsal-1qa]

⛔ please help my family don't skip 🛑

Hello, My name is Ahmad Mohammed Hassan Salah, a 33-year-old man from Gaza, Palestine. Under the sky of Gaza, amidst the war and shelling, begins my story. I lived my life in the northern part of Gaza with my wife and three children, dreaming of a secure future for my small family. Nada, my seven-year-old eldest daughter, loves to draw, though her colors have disappeared amid the rubble 🎨💔. Mohamed, my five-year-old son, still dreams of playing in a garden untouched by bombs 🛝💔. As for Huda, my two-year-old, she has started uttering her first words amid the sounds of explosions 🍼💔.

The tragedy began one night of the war when I was forced to leave my home under continuous bombardment 💣😔. I carried my children and my anxious wife, running through the debris and darkness in search of a safe haven 🌪️. Our journey was fraught with dangers, as we left everything behind: our home, memories, and even our money and food 🏚️💔. After a long journey, we found ourselves in southern Gaza, where we set up a small tent as a temporary refuge ⛺���.

The tent, small as it was, became our new world. Without mattresses to shield us from the cold nights or blankets to protect us from the rain 🌧️❄️, life was harsh. The children slept on the ground, and I struggled to provide any food to feed my family 🍞💔. But the war showed us no mercy. After only three months, we were forced to move once again, this time to central Gaza. The Israeli army described it as a "safe zone," but the shelling followed us like an unrelenting shadow 💔💣.

More than a year has passed, and my family and I continue to live under bombardment and destruction 🌋💔. Each day brings with it a new story of suffering. Food is scarce 🍽️, water is contaminated 🚱, and fear never leaves my children's hearts 😔💔. Nada has started asking, "When will this war end?" 😢. Mohamed tries to comfort his mother, who weeps in silence 😭💔. As for Huda, she knows no world other than one filled with terrifying sounds 🥺.

I also suffer from a chronic illness, and I have a medical report confirming my condition 🏥💔. However, the pain of my illness is less than the anguish I see in my children's eyes 💔😔. I try to be strong, but I sometimes break down when I cannot provide food for them 🥺. My wife stands by me, trying to bring hope, but even hope has become a rare commodity 💔.

Amidst the devastation, I want to send a message to the world: "We are human. Our children deserve a better life. We just want safety. All I want is to sleep one night without fearing that my children will wake up to the sound of explosions." 🙏💔

Due to this ongoing suffering, I appeal to the world through Tumblr to raise donations for my family and for other families experiencing similar circumstances 🌍💔. If you are able to provide any assistance, no matter how small, it would mean so much to us 🙏🫂. You can help by donating food, clothing, or even essential medications that we desperately need 💊🛒. I kindly ask you to share our story on Tumblr, because spreading it may reach kind hearts all over the world—hearts that can offer help and save the lives of my children and the children of Gaza from this hell ❤️🕊️.

My story is not just an individual one; it represents thousands of families in Gaza living in conditions that are unimaginable 💔. The question remains: How long will this suffering continue? And will the day come when Nada can draw a sun without it being covered by the smoke of war? 🌞✏️💔

✅️Vetted by @gazavetters, my number verified on the list is ( #280 )✅️

✅️Vetted by @gazavetters

[zvaigzdelasas]

Do you have an analysis on Sinwar being the new politburo chief? Very unexpected choice.

Have a couple thoughts:

Dissolving more of the barrier between Hamas as a political organization & as an insurgent organization

Spitting in Israel's face who was hoping that a decapitation strike would leave hamas with a leader lacking broader political legitimacy in the organization or create divisions/deepen divisions between civilian governance & militant organization

Lessens the leverage Qatar has over Hamas as they were providing Haniyeh with refuge

Since Sinwar is (presumably) in Gaza, his presence will likely be used to justify decreasingly discriminate attacks even moreso than it was before

Likely much more uncompromising (not to imply Haniyeh was) in negotiations

Israel and the US will have to directly negotiate with someone they despise

Dropsite News describes sinwar as such:

Despite the sinister portrayals, Sinwar’s writings and media interviews indicate he is a complex thinker with clearly defined political objectives who believes in armed struggle as a means to an end. He gives the impression of a well-educated political militant, not a cult leader on a mass suicide crusade. “It's not this black image of Sinwar as a man with two horns living in the tunnels,” said Hamad, the Hamas official who worked directly with Sinwar for three years. “But in the time of war, he's very strong. This man is very strong. If he wants to fight, he fights seriously.”

In 1988, just months after Hamas was founded, Sinwar was arrested by Israeli forces and sentenced to four life sentences on charges he had personally murdered alleged Palestinian collaborators. During his 22 years in an Israeli prison, he became fluent in Hebrew and studied the history of the Israeli state, its political culture, and its intelligence and military apparatus. He translated by hand the memoirs of several former heads of the Israeli intelligence agency Shin Bet. “When I entered [prison], it was 1988, the Cold War was still going on. And here [in Palestine], the Intifada. To spread the latest news, we printed fliers. I came out, and I found the internet,” Sinwar told an Italian journalist in 2018. “But to be honest, I never came out—I have only changed prisons. And despite it all, the old one was much better than this one. I had water, electricity. I had so many books. Gaza is much tougher.”[...]

Sinwar, unlike leaders of Al Qaeda or ISIS, has regularly invoked international law and UN resolutions, exhibiting a nuanced understanding of the history of negotiations with Israel mediated by the U.S. and other nations. “Let's be clear: having an armed resistance is our right, under international law. But we don't only have rockets. We have been using a variety of means of resistance,” he said in the 2018 interview. “We make the headlines only with blood. And not only here. No blood, no news. But the problem is not our resistance, it is their occupation. With no occupation, we wouldn't have rockets. We wouldn't have stones, Molotov cocktails, nothing. We would all have a normal life."

Throughout 2018 and 2019, Sinwar endorsed the large-scale nonviolent protests along the walls and fences of Gaza known as the Great March of Return. “We believe that if we have a way to potentially resolve the conflict without destruction, we’re O.K. with that,” Sinwar said at a rare news conference in 2018. “We would prefer to earn our rights by soft and peaceful means. But we understand that if we are not given those rights, we are entitled to earn them by resistance.”[...]

After the end of Israel’s 11-day bombing campaign against Gaza, Sinwar spoke to VICE News and sought to frame the Palestinian struggle in a U.S. context, using recent cases of lethal police violence against African Americans. “The same type of racism that killed George Floyd is being used by [Israel] against the Palestinians in Jerusalem, the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood, and in the West Bank. And by the burning of our children. And against the Gaza Strip through siege, murder, and starvation.”

And additionally (echoing the words of Hagari)

Support among Palestinians for Hamas and its Gaza leader Yahya Sinwar, according to the recent poll, “remains very high” and has increased during the past three months. At the same time, while two-thirds of Palestinians polled in the occupied territories believe that Hamas will “win the war,” only 48 percent of those in Gaza agreed.

Hamas has insisted the war cannot destroy its movement and will remain part of the tapestry of Palestinian factions governing its besieged and occupied territories. “What matters is that you finally realize that Hamas is here. That it exists. That there is no future without Hamas, there is no possible deal whatsoever, because we are part and parcel of this society, even if we lose the next elections,” Sinwar warned in 2018. “But we are a piece of Palestine. More than that, we are a piece of the history of the entire Arab world, which includes Islamists as well as seculars, nationalists, leftists.”

Daniel Hagari has also echoed this last bit [TimesOfIsrael is Israeli Private Media]

“Hamas is an idea, Hamas is a party. It’s rooted in the hearts of the people — anyone who thinks we can eliminate Hamas is wrong,” he continued.

Rumors are that Netanyahu is trying to figure out necromancy in order to bring Haniyeh back

Also check out this interview conducted by Vice

[northern-passage]

Reblogging something about celebrating terrorist groups murdering and kidnapping people.....I just hope that anyone who enjoys seeing such things will *never* have the experience of having their loved ones disappear one morning.

I hope they never have to see the faces of theirs relatives, friends, classmates, colleagues and neighbors on palestinian tv being beaten and dragged to gaza by terrorist.

Could you imagine seeing your friend who was missing the whole day on palestinian tiktok being kidnapped while people are happy about it? While entire streets are closed inside their homes because armed terrorist raid your city? Breaking into homes to kidnap people?

No matter what side theyre on i hope no one ever has to experience that kind of horror.

the Palestinian people have had to watch their children and brothers and sisters and mothers and fathers be murdered violently in the streets of Gaza for decades because of the violent occupation of Palestine.

you get to call the colonizers "relatives, friends, classmates, colleagues and neighbors" but the Palestinian people are only ever "terrorists." when the Israeli police drag Palestinians out of mosques and kill them in streets-- more than 200 Palestinians have been killed this year alone, plus the 161 that have already been killed in retaliation-- are you going to call them terrorists, too? as Israel continues their retaliation and kills 30 Palestinians for every single Israeli soldier, is it "terrorism" or will you find a way to justify it, then? will you care about the "relatives, friends, classmates, colleagues and neighbors" then?

"No matter what side theyre on i hope no one ever has to experience that kind of horror." again, Palestinians have been living this for decades. and what we're witnessing now is the inevitable response to those decades of oppression & occupation.

as for your "friends, classmates, colleagues and neighbors" -- they are living on occupied land. land that was taken by force through ethnic cleansing. they can leave at any time-- most of them have already, fleeing back to their home countries with their dual citizenships, or theyre safely sitting in hotels waiting for it to be over. they are settlers. they are part of the settler colony that is actively oppressing, dispossessing, and murdering Palestinians. and to be clear, that post you're talking about is not "celebrating civilian deaths," you are just purposefully misrepresenting it here to further dehumanize Palestinians and depict them as "terrorists." of course i do not want civilians to die. no one wants that. i feel for the Israeli people, the children & the ones who cannot leave. but at least they are allowed to be people, they are allowed to be friends, classmates, colleagues, neighbors. Palestinians have never been granted that, and you are proving it here in my inbox.

these "terrorists" you decry are oppressed people taking up arms-- scavenged from the weapons Israeli soldiers and police have been using against them for years-- to decolonize and take back their home. decolonization is a violent process. we absolutely cannot tolerate a double standard. there is no "both sides."

Myth: Israel is defending itself | Decolonize Palestine

Myth: Israel is not an Apartheid state | Decolonize Palestine

Myth: Israel has always sought peace | Decolonize Palestine

Myth: The Palestinian Authority subsidizes "terrorism" (pay to slay) | Decolonize Palestine

Myth: Israel (or any other state) has a right to exist | Decolonize Palestine

all of my support to the Palestinian resistance, from the river to the sea Palestine will be free.

[evilwickedme]

I keep seeing news that Israel has rejected a ceasefire deal from Hamas and/or that Hamas has rejected a ceasefire deal from Israel, and I'm having a very hard time keeping up with what's true, what terms have been rejected by who, and how ceasefire negotiations have been going in general. Do you have any information you could share or sources you could direct me to that would give this kind of news in an unbiased way? I think that saying that either side rejected a deal without explaining what parts of the terms were not agreed with is dishonest and I hate that I keep seeing it.

Thanks and I hope you're well and safe.

I'm not going to source this with anything specific cause my job is in the news so I'm just doing this off the cuff while literally on the bus there lmao

Both sides are in fact constantly rejecting ceasefire deals, for their own reasons. Some scattered thoughts from the last several months of coverage

One of the biggest points is ending the war. Hamas keeps going back and forth on this but is mostly insisting that even for the first, humanitarian stage of the hostage/ceasefire deal Israel must agree to take out all of its troops and essentially leave Hamas to remain the ruling party in the Gaza strip

This is essentially the only hard no on Israel's side. Netanyahu especially refuses to end the war without a military victory that essentially is impossible to get without entering Rafah (and in my opinion is currently impossible to achieve at all). There is a willingness to pause the war in exchange for the hostages up to a certain degree, but there simply isn't a chance that Israel is going to give up on defeating the remaining Hamas military divisions in Rafah and hopefully killing Sinwar

A lot of the problem is that Hamas will present a deal that Israel finds unacceptable, Israel will take time to deliberate, come up with a middle ground, and then Hamas will actually make a worse offer in return. A lot of things that Israel is currently putting on the table were things Hamas originally requested and was willing to be on those terms, but now they want things that are even further from Israel's interests.

For example, at first Hamas was asking for women and children to be allowed to go back to northern Gaza. Now they are asking for the entire civilian population to return to northern Gaza... And for Israel to not even check that no Hamas agents are going back up north, where there are still many rocket launchers that were never found. Personally I would like that not to happen, as I would like rockets to not be launched at me. Maybe that's a lot to ask, idk

Another example is the fact that at first Hamas asked for a certain number of terrorists to be freed, but that about a third of them (iirc) would be picked by Hamas, with no veto power given to Israel. The offer currently on the table gives Israel no veto power at all, and unlike the deal from November where Israel only freed terrorists who failed to kill anyone, this time Israel will be required to pretty much exclusively free murderers.

The truth is Hamas has very little interest in a hostage deal. They don't want the terrorists in Israeli prisons as much as we want the hostages that are, according to current intelligence, being used as human shields, many of them surrounding Sinwar at all times. The first hostage deal led to humanitarian aid being brought into Gaza, which due to Israeli negligence has been taken over by Hamas; aid is being increased (although not enough) with no "return on investment" so to speak for Israel.

(sidenote: yes, there is not enough aid entering Gaza. Also, a lot of the aid is being taken by Hamas officials, with the remains being sold at outrageous prices to the refugees. Shit is bad from all directions here)

Meanwhile, the IDF has essentially pulled all its soldiers out of Gaza. There are currently only two military divisions in Gaza iirc, and they're mostly just staying there with not much happening. The current attack on Rafah is "small scale", and comes as a direct result of rockets being shot at south Israel on Sunday, resulting in several people being grievously injured. Overall, not much military action is happening, meaning that, for example, agreeing to cease military activities in Gaza is relatively unimportant to Hamas rn (emphasis on to Hamas).

And another truth is netanyahu ALSO doesn't want a ceasefire. The moment this war ends the public will demand an election (hell, a THIRD of the public is demanding an election NOW, before the end of the war), and he has lost many of his more casual voters. He will be forced out of the government either by his party or by the voters, and netanyahu wants power over all else, fuck the hostages.

He doesn't WANT to answer for his actions in front of his citizens. It's no coincidence that he is willing to be interviewed by the foreign press but no Israeli papers or channels; it's no coincidence that he refuses to allow the Israeli negotiators to come up creative solutions, instead giving them extreme restrictions. And his absolute refusal to even acknowledging the possible existence of a future Palestinian state is going to fuck Israel over in unimaginable ways

In short, fuck Hamas, fuck Netanyahu and the current extreme right wing government, #bringthemhome #freegazafromhamas and #ceasefirenow

As usual, I recommend a mix of Haaretz, the NYT, and the wall street journal as my favorite although never unbiased journalism on i/p. It is so important that we all understand that nobody is unbiased about any political issue, including me, and especially not about Israel and Palestine. It is an extremely charged subject that is best parsed out by reading from a variety of sources, and always noting that if something is only quoted or referenced by sources from one "side", it's frankly probably not true.

I hope for the best, and may this nightmare end as soon as possible

[ancestralsurvival]

I saw an Instagram comment that I can’t get out of my mind.

The commenter identified themselves as an Israeli Jew and said they had never experienced antisemitism before Oct. 7 and felt so sorry for Jews in the diaspora who face the threat of antisemitism every day.

And I just …

Never?

Never experienced “little” antisemitism like being told you’ll burn in hell because you haven’t taken Jesus Christ as your personal savior?

Never experienced “harmless” antisemitism like being the subject of Rapture fascination or “envy” over your “unique relationship to God the Father”?

Never experienced “that was weird” antisemitism like going to a fabric store in Brooklyn, New York, and telling the fabric cutter how much fabric you want but when the fabric cutter lines up the machine to cut what you’d asked for from the bolt of fabric, another fabric cutter looks over his shoulder and says to the first fabric cutter, “You cut like a Jew. Give her a little extra,” only for the first fabric cutter to, indeed, give you a little extra that you didn’t want, you’d asked for what you wanted, and you’re too taken aback to say anything so you just pay for your fabric and leave in a daze and you never, ever used that fabric even though you were so excited when you first chose it, so pretty, not pretty anymore, fabric you still have and every time you look at the fabric you feel like shit and you’re also paralyzed all over again and the thought of donating the fabric or using it in a project both seem somehow wrong?

No?

Never?

(In case you’re curious — yes, Ashkenazi privilege and please don’t judge me for what I can’t control. I didn’t ask for the need to wonder if my Polish-looking face is the result of brave and beautiful intermarriage/conversion or nightmarish sexual violence.)

Anyway, I keep thinking about that Instagram comment and the big and small aspects of antisemitism experienced by diaspora Jews, even the minor interactions I’ve mentioned here, and how I’d normalized that as “something that happens to Jews” and … it doesn’t have to.

It doesn’t have to.

[shipping-isnt-morality]

I don’t feel like I have anything to say to Zionists anymore except “this is what it sounds like to defend genocide.”

I just - can you hear yourself? I know many of you have studied fascism and the rise of genocidal attitudes. Do you think you’re immune? Do you think being Jewish, or educated, or the descendant of genocide survivors makes you immune? You know better.

My god, if the 20th century can teach us one thing, let it be that humans are great at justifying genocide to themselves and each other when motivated to. No education can inoculate against it. Every excuse had been used before. Every feeling of righteous justification for slaughter has already been invoked.

It is undeniable that there are tens of thousands of dead. So many thousands upon tens upon hundreds of thousands of children dead maimed orphaned traumatized by bombs that Israel dropped, shells that Israel fired, targets chosen by software Israel made.

This is undeniable; I can see it with my own eyes. You can say, this is the reality of war, and I will say: this is the reality of your choices. How Israel wages “war” is a choice. How they go about statecraft is a choice. We cannot and should never accept their justifications that some action of the enemy necessitated this response; they still chose the response.

There was a euphemism in some death camps in Poland: “dirty work”. It was often literally true - there’s horrific stories about the smell and texture of industrial amounts of human ash - but also figuratively; the work of mass executions is more often seen as a necessary evil for the accomplishment of a greater good. It’s rarely celebrated or acknowledged openly for what it is at the time. All of this is very normal in genocide.

I look at my timeline in the past months, at the choices Israel has made for its “greater good”, I have listened to the justifications. What I see is Israelis making the same old tired weak excuses for their own dirty work.

And all I have to say anymore is: this is what it sounds like when you defend genocide. You have not invented a new thought in all of it. “They’re not a real group, they’re monsters, we don’t want to kill them but we have to, we just want them to leave before they kill us all and they’ll try to exterminate us the second we stop killing them” - save it.

Do some fucking reading on other genocides - the Armenian one is particularly relevant - and read arguments from genocide deniers and you will quickly see it is all the same shit. Check out Facebook posts from Myanmar during the genocide and it’s basically indistinguishable from tweets from Zionists today. It’s the same shit, over and over and over again.

Literally billions of people with eyes can see what Israel is doing and call it what it is, because it’s been done before, and all the defensive answers and excuses have been done before too.

This is what it looks like when people defend genocide. Always just like this.

[jewish-vents]

this new hatsune miku nationality trend is starting to piss me off and of course the watermelon crowd just had to ruin it. at the beginning this trend was super cute and cool and now it just turned into a fest of antisemitism and xenophobia. i’ve been a vocaloid fan since 2016 so miku is one of my biggest comfort characters ever, and seeing her now being swept into this bullshit makes me so angry yet exhausted at the same time. people just won’t leave israelis alone and it’s sickening at this point. stop being so obsessed about us already!! let us have fun with trends and fictional characters too!! why do you want to erase our identities and cultures so badly? how on earth does that even help palestinians exactly. and the funniest thing is that they continue saying it’s only antizionism, not antisemitism lmao.

there’s an israeli person who drew miku as an israeli on twitter (or x. whatever), and the amount of death threats and other horrible things people commented about them is outrageous. i think they eventually deleted the post because of the harassment, and it’s just… so unfair. miku can be drawn as every nationality in the world, and no one will bat an eye. i bet even if somebody draws her as russian or something nobody will give a fuck. people will only lose their marbles and be racist/xenophobic when israel is mentioned and it’s disgusting. i know i may be extremely dramatic over a fictional character and a bunch of buffoons on the internet, but this just shows how ‘leftists’ aren’t really who they represent to be. they act like nazis in a death cult. it’s like they only pretend to care about palestine just to have an excuse to hate on israel and dehumanize half of the world’s population of jews. and yes, believe it or not israelis do have a culture, one that’s more diverse than you’d imagine. cry about it.

it’s pretty ironic how i became so emotionally drained because of a japanese vocal synthesizer. and i really love miku. but i’ll never forgive these hypocrites for not allowing us to breathe anywhere. not to mention the fact they really like to fandomize the conflict for some reason, which is just. insane.

i wish a day would come and people could just treat us like humans beings. let us fucking be

.

[xclowniex]

from a realistic point of view, i dont see how zionism doesnt lead to non-jewish palestinian death or at least repression. if you have a state which has it enshrined in its founding documentation that it is For "Jewish People" (israel has been carefree about fucking over people they dont consider to be Jewish in the right way). two state solution doesnt even solve it since the assumption is just to have another israel and shove all the people they dont think count as jews over to palestinian state and pretend like they didnt just make an ethnostate

The reason you do not see how it doesn't lead to palestinian death is because on a fundamental level, you do not understand zionism from a jewish perspective.

Jews can and have, taken DNA tests and proved that we are descdant from cannanites who lived in Southern Levant. There is history too proving our orign from the region. A lot of jews were forced out due to various empires wanting to kill us, however some jews remained in the region.

Zionism is simply about self determination for jews as one of the indigenous peoples to the region. It does not inherently imply that palestinians are not indigenous as you can very much have two indigenous groups in a region, eg Moriori and Maori for example, both are indigenous to land which is part of New Zealand, but are two different groups.

I'm not going to say that no zionist ever wants harm to palestinians as there are, however the majority of zionists want a two state solution or a land for all solution (which is different to a one state solution of israel or palestine).

Indigenous groups do deserve self determination. This applies to all indigenous groups world wide. One indigenous group gaining self determination does not inherently harm another group of people, indigenous or not.

Ideologies can be implemented badly and not mean that the inherent concept is bad. For example, communism. No country has ever sucessfully implemented communism as they never leave the transition phase without something going wrong. Saying that zionism always hurts palestinians is like saying that communism is inherently genocidal because of China and Russia.

There are plenty of zionist solutions which does not harm palestinians which are deemed as ideal solutions by zionists, such as versions of a two state solution and land for all solutions.

Israel is also not an ethnostate. The percentage of israeli jews is almost equal to those who are New Zealand European in NZ, yet no one calls NZ an ethnostate. There are plenty of other countries whose majority population is around a similar percentage of 70% - 75% of a country and that country does not get called an ethnostate. Either, all countries with the majority ethnicity percentage above are ethnostates, or the threshold percentage needs to be higher for a country to be an ethno state, or if its only Israel who is an ethnostate and other countries with similar percentage are not, then you hold an antisemitic belief as the only jewish state should not be an exception for purely being a jewish state.

I would also like to touch on yoru usage of "non-jewish palestinian".

Whilst palestinian jews do exist (and I do know one personally), they are a very small minority of palestinians. It is illegal to be jewish in Gaza and the West Bank, so there are no rabbi's there for palestinians to convert. So I am very confused as to what you mean as there are no palestinian jews in palestine, and those that exist in the diaspora are a minority in both aspects, so whilst they deserve recognising and care, your wording is very strange and dogwhistle like. The reason I say dog whistle like, is because it is a common dog whistle for people to say that palestinians are the real jews and who we refer to as jews today are fake jews, which is obviously antisemitic.

[matan4il]

Daily update post:

Israel has been preparing for the possibility of a direct strike from Iran. To that end, the IDF has been initiating GPS jamming, first in the south, and now in central Israel as well. On a personal note, I had to calm my mom down today (I could do this thanks to having heard about it on the news already), because it's a scary thing for people, and they don't know what to think, when they open Waze and find themselves "appearing" in enemy territory. Iran's attack options might also include drone attacks, or anti-Jewish terrorist attacks around the world. We've heard about Esther and Mordechai's Tomb being attacked tonight in Iran itself.

Speaking of the country that's the biggest funder of terrorism globally, tomorrow it's "Al-Quds Day" (Jerusalem Day) in Iran. It was established in 1979, after the Islamist revolution, as an antisemitic political measure, meant to help radicalize people against the Jewish state. Officially, it's a protest of Israel's sovereignity in Jerusalem, the city which has been the capital of the Jewish people, the place we pray to, for over 3,000 years, longer than Islam has existed. Some people worry that Iran will use this date specifically to strike against Israel or other Jewish targets around the world.

With or without connection, the chief of Israel's army intelligence is quoted as saying in private conversations, "I have told you time and time again that it is not certain that the worst is behind us and we are ahead of complex days."

Back in February, we heard that the niece of Hamas' overall leader, Ismail Haniyeh, gave birth in an Israeli hospital, and her baby, which was born prematurely, was treated in an Israeli hospital's NICU, the same hospital that had to have millions of shekels spent on, in order to make parts of it safe during Hamas' rocket attacks. While at it, we were reminded that several of Haniyeh's sisters live in Israel after marrying Israeli Bedouins, and that a few more of his relatives were allowed from Gaza into Israel for medical treatment. Just a small reminder that Haniyeh's personal wealth is estimated to be somewhere between 4 to 5 billion dollars (Taylor Swift's is only a little over 1 billion dollars), and if he wanted to, he could have flown his entire family out of there, to join him in Qatar, with the best facilities and care, rather than get medical care at a hospital subsidized by the "genocidal Zionist enemy."

Now we get the news that one of Haniyeh's sisters, a 57 years old woman, has been arrested for helping Hamas, including support for the Oct 7 massacre.

This is 34 years old Lidor Levi.

He was critically injured in the Palestinian terrorist attack in Gan Yavne. He was in a hospital, fighting for his life for 4 days. Today we got the news that he succumbed to his wounds. He leaves a pregnant wife and a daughter behind. May his memory be a blessing.

I will never understand how the accidental killing of 7 civilians in Gaza is making more headlines, and causes more rage, than the on going and intentional killing of so many Israeli civilians targeted in terrorist attacks along this entire war. I can't remember the world even addressing it, let alone raging about how unacceptable these killings are, and how they're proof that Palestinian terrorist organizations must be stopped. For that matter, I haven't come across anywhere as many headlines and world leaders' statements about an intentional drone attack that killed several rescue workers in Kharkiv, where a residential area was targeted. The hyperfocus on the one conflict where Jews can be demonized, is also leaving a lot less attention for, practical aid, and just general caring about other conflicts, which are in many ways far worse (just look at Tigray alone on the below map). It's harmful to so many more people than we come close to realizing.

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

[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.

[fairuzfan]

Sorry one more thing I wasn't going to talk about but if you had asked me about the binational state/land thing maybe... in 2016, I might have given a somewhat positive answer but I think that since then, Israeli society has become exponentially more racist and anti-Palestinian. Since then we had the Abraham Accords, Sheikh Jarrah, Massafir Yatta, the highest child martyr count in years, and now finally a full blown genocide. Many Palestinians who previously advocated for equality in a single state look at all this, especially in recent months and think "how can I live side by side with these people?"

The vast majority of Israeli society is not against war for the sake of the Palestinians, they're against war for their own safety. They say as much. Hell, look at standing together. The founder guy says "our security is tied in with the Palestinians'". So if it wasn't tied with the Palestinians', you wouldn't care? And I get sometimes you need to introduce people to ideas gently, but their entire organization language emphasizes "shared pain" when there is an oppressor/oppressed dynamic they aren't even hinting at. How can anyone achieve safety if you won't even admit you have power over your Palestinian org members?

Even Brothers in Arms claims to want to "strengthen democracy" but they completely ignore Palestinians have never experienced democracy in "Israel". So what's the point strengthening your own standing when the most disadvantaged still are at rock bottom?? Plus your whole group represents the IOF reservists/members, you have no intention of helping Palestinians when you are the primary oppressors. And this is not an insignificant group in israel!

Not many Israelis are willing to put themselves on the line to protect or even advocate for Palestinians. I mean 7+ months into a genocide and what did israeli society do other than protest *netanyahu*? Hold up flour bags during the flour massacre??? The people serving in the idf are your friends and family and community. Tel Aviv is an hour away from Gaza. Surely you can do *something* physical!! They had people at their Gaza borders starving Palestinians on purpose and people just... watched it happen. Not to mention the IOF, which many Israelis are a part of, participates in the genocide and has been lauded for their "heroism". I look at that and I think "how can I expect you to seriously consider my rights as a person? How do I know you won't miss your old status and reclaim it?"

We've seen Israelis *celebrate* and *ridicule* our martyrs and people. So like where us the good faith in all this? Where can we work with some of these people and think "Yeah I believe they'll respect my inherent dignity as a person"?

Which binationalism relies on this. You need to have good faith between communities for this to actually happen. But when one community won't even acknowledge it's status as an oppressor at the height of oppression? Then what?

Israel as a country has never faced any retribution for its actions for 75 years. No one is holding them accountable. The country teaches propaganda in its schools about the Nakba. There is not serious consideration for Palestinian rights in Israeli society. Why would they suddenly decide to participate in a project that puts Palestinians as equal to Israelis when they learned all their lives that Palestinians are ruthless, unreasonable people who can't be reasoned with, and Israelis are logical, poor victims who are actually the ones who need protection from the Palestinians!

It just is mind boggling because I see people constantly complain about the way they hear things from Palestinians these days like "all Israelis need to leave". And they go on to say "why would you be so hateful/why would you say that" and don't think for a minute they're experiencing a televised genocide of their people (which they could have ended up in their shoes! People forget that Gaza has multiple refugee camps! Any one of us could have lived there!) And conversely are looking to Israeli society for them to do anything and they see nothing. At least think for a moment why they would say these things given the context of the situation. There's a genocide going on! And you're worried about what the people who are experiencing their people's genocide are saying because you're worried for the society conducting said genocide?? Let's deal with the matter at hand first!!!!!!

[bsof-maarav]

I just talked to one of the handful of friends I have left from my former community and found out that a specific former mutual friend, one who particularly prides herself on being a feminist, is straight up denying the hamas rapes, demanding "forensic evidence" and claiming it's all "Israeli propaganda."

I just have no more words left. I knew it was bad and I left behind what little social media I had in the first days after October 7th because I saw enough to know that I wasn't going to be able to be in this community anymore, I saw enough to know that I wasn't going to be hanging out with this crowd ever again. But I didn't stay long enough to watch every particular individual do and say the monstrous things that it turns out so many of them have been doing and saying.

I just left. And for a lot of them, I deliberately didn't look. I deliberately didn't look too closely at anything this woman was doing, for example--I thought it would hurt too much if it was bad. I thought it was better to just consider this part of my life over, to remember these people as they were to me before. I didn't want to know. I was leaving anyway.

Piecemeal, I saw some egregious things from some of my former friends. Glorifying self immolation...calling for the genocide of Jews...Holocaust inversion...claiming the hostages deserved it...denying that Jews are indigenous to anyplace on this earth...people who have utilized our words and symbols for their own liberation movements, wholesale denying the humanity of the people who made those words and symbols in the first place.

Every new piece of news I learn about who is dehumanizing us and with what rationale is just profoundly dispiriting.

No matter how many ways these people should be able to relate and make a human connection, they refuse to. Everything in their supposed values should enable them to hold the truth of what is happening to us. But it doesn't.

They're willing to treat Jews, especially Israeli Jews, in a way they would never accept for anyone else, in a way they would strenuously resist for anyone else--in fact, they strenuously resist much less serious things for anyone and everyone else! and that just breaks me. It means they never had the values that I thought we shared. It's all been a lie.

I froze things in time for some months, to some degree, accepting it was bad enough to be over, but not wanting to know the details. But with every new detail it's undeniable: there is no moral compass there. That world should have been a home for me and for years, I felt it was, but this hate was there the whole time. I never understood the conditions of my "belonging."

I can never forgive them. Not least because they'll never stop feeling righteous about their evil.