#is absolutely propaganda by the israeli government and is not true

[seductivejellyfish]

Making this post against my better judgement but:

It is 100% true that decolonization does not have to include mass expulsion and/or revenge and those are scare tactics and false flags used by colonizing powers to prevent decolonization actions.

However, it is ignorant, willful or accidentally, to ignore the history of Jews as a group specifically when imagining the future for Jews in the middle east after Palestine is freed.

White people in the US, for example do not have a legitimate reason to fear that they will be expelled from their homes in the event of landback successes. That fear is manufactured and based on nothing.

Jews absolutely have reason to fear that they will be expelled from their homes in most countries in the world. That fear is more or less legitimate in various places due to a variety of factors, but it is not built on nothing, it is built on the history of Jews being expelled from nearly every country in the world, and a current state of the world that is still rife with antisemitism.

The region around Palestine is not on the whole wholly hostile to the state of Israel because of humanitarian support for the people of Palestine. That is absolutely a large part of the motivation for action for many people in the region and around the world, but on the governmental level, many of these countries are also deeply antisemitic and have eliminated the Jewish populations of their own countries.

It is reasonable and logical, not invented, for a Jew to fear expulsion from their home in the middle east without a Jewish state to protect them.

That does not mean that Palestinians want to force Jews out, kill them all, etc. Those are still false flag claims to discredit the movement.

It also does not mean that Jewish safety should ever come at the cost of Palestinian lives and safety. Palestine must be freed, and it is not on the suffering Palestinians to reassure Jews that they won't be 'taking revenge' or anything like that. It also doesn't mean that there shouldn't be any physical returning of home and lands - there absolutely must be.

But it it disingenuous to compare the situation precisely to other decolonization situations in this respect and gets in the way of communication. The Jewish fear of expulsion is not a fear built on nothingness and guilt, though those of course contribute to the fervor of that feeling among settler Israelis. Jews have real historical and current reasons to fear expulsions from governments of the world, even if they do not have immediate reasons to fear mass expulsions from a specifically Palestinian government.

And a second time, for good measure: It also does not mean that Jewish safety should ever come at the cost of Palestinian lives and safety.

[sprites4ever]

A Good Example Of How Propaganda Is Designed And How To Spot It

PREFACE

While this uses media from the extremely emotional, polarizing Israel-Palestine conflict as an example, these principles apply to all media and topics. This not a political statement, unlike a lot of other things on my blog, but just a case study.

While I'll be using some scientific manners of text writing, this is just for clarity's sake.

I am an amateur, not a media scientist.

OBJECT OF STUDY

This cropped screenshot I took from my YouTube recommendations

WHAT CAN BE DERIVED, JUST FROM THE INFORMATION IN THIS SCREENSHOT

SOURCE: Look through Middle East Eye's other content to see that they cover hardly anything except the Israel-Palestine conflict, and with hardly any but one viewpoint, that viewpoint boiling down to "Israel = Inhuman collective satan entity that needs to be destroyed before it destroys Palestine". They don't say that, but if you're hardly exposed to any other side's coverage of this conflict, this is what you will think after seeing their content. Because it's designed to make you think that.

Especially the monothematic content is a dead giveaway. No actual news reporter does this because not everyone is interested in one topic. People visit themed papers and forums to read about one specific topic on end, and not something as generically named as 'Middle East Eye'. The Middle East is a large region with more than Israel and Palestine in it.

WORD CHOICE: The Israel-Palestine conflict is by legal definition not a genocide, as, according to Hamas themselves (who massively exaggerate Palestinian casualties), the number of Palestinians killed since October 7th last year is around 45.000. (Hamas do not differentiate between military and civilians with this number either.)

A genocide is the ethnicity-based murder, cleansing, forced displacement or destruction of history and culture, with 300.000 victims or more. While Gaza has a population of 2.000.000 and while Israel is guilty of many war crimes and of not supporting fleeing Palestinians, said displacement is not based on the ethnicity of Gaza's people, but on Israel's war with Gaza's government.

This is to say, calling this a genocide is not objectively true, and thus mentioning it in a title is manipulative.

Yes, the title is just mentioning the name of a social media account, but said account is misusing the word genocide, which has extreme emotional and political connotation, by itself and Middle East Eye clearly support it, given their mentioning of its name in the title, as well as the insinuated significance of this account.

('Israel Genocide Tracker' is in and for itself extremely worded terminology and the operator of said account clearly doesn't even care as much about supporting Palestine as they care about hating Israel, if they'd rather title their account with the supposed perpetrator, not the supposed victim.)

DEMONIZATION: Depicts a side (which just so happens to be Israel) as weak cowards and murderers, without exception - an absolute classic of demonization.

Again, they don't say it, but this is what someone, who only knows about this conflict from one extremely biased source, will conclude from it.

If a side demonizes another side, that's because they want more people to join their war with said side, plain and simple. This is war propaganda.

AVOIDING FACT-CHECKING: They admit in their title that this information is speculative in nature and that they do not have solid evidence, by using 'reportedly'. They do this to try and get a free pass through the fact checker, as they obviously have no hard evidence of actual Israeli soldiers (who, like all soldiers, are probably more worried about getting shot) being worried about a random social media account.

Remember, word choice matters.

So, they say 'reportedly' (read: 'we claim without evidence, that[...]'), to try and seem like they're not making things up. They act like they choose their sources carefully and don't immediately parrot whatever source they have as gospel, to cover up the fact that they're doing precisely that.

Just because someone uses the word 'reportedly' and gets thousands of clicks, does not make them a trustworthy information source. I can also claim on social media that many people reportedly think I am the Emperor of China and get thousands of clicks, if I use bots and paid account operators, as well as clickbait and a large follower base which was amassed by me having done this before.

This method preys on people's perception of how media works these days: Look serious to be taken seriously.

Again, speaking from experience, it takes one year of learning Adobe Photoshop and Premiere Pro to be able to make convincing 'news' graphics and videos. One can, for example, pair these graphics with some generic royalty-free background music, as well as very well lighted and easy to understand photos with good quality and shot composition even though they were supposedly taken in a war and one's golden(-plated shit). If a socially rejected 22-year old German hobby blogger can tell you how this works, people who have decades of experience in manufacturing media will certainly know this.

MEDIA FORMAT: The video being a minute long and using on-screen text for understandability shows that it was designed for social media and isn't a clip from some sort of TV channel or news site.

The thumbnail is also a random photo of some people who look like Israeli soldiers. They could be, but they could also not be, as this photo could easily be constructed in any desert using a group of actors, military uniforms, prop guns and an Israeli flag. This is chosen to make you associate the presented information with the vague concept of 'Israeli military'.

In propaganda, a rule of thumb is: The more vague the communicated idea, the better, as a vague idea can stick in people's heads more easily, as it is harder to disprove with factual evidence than a very specific, focused idea.

Example, to communicate why vague ideas are used for manipulation:

If one thinks

"Nuclear power bad, because toxic and because atom bombs.", one can reject anything that reminds them of atomic energy.

Whereas if one thinks

"Nuclear power is dangerous and unsustainable, due to the risk of release or contamination of the environment with ionizing radiation, the production of long-lastingly radiactive waste, as well as the immense costs and efforts of operating a nuclear power plant.", parts, or even the whole idea, can be proven wrong with factual evidence.

[unbidden-yidden-deactivated20240]

I have a bunch of thoughts related to your recent post on lefty antisemitism, but I don't want to dump a big long thing in your inbox - let me know if you want me to send it, other than that just know you're not alone trying to wade through the messiness of it all.

I know leftist antisemitism is alive and well, I know Jewish perspectives/experiences/identities are not valued, and I know there’s a load of misinformation out there when it comes to the conflict (though honestly, I don’t trust info from any side because everything is propaganda at this point). But I listened to a podcast episode (Joyous Justice - a Jewish racial justice podcast hosted by a Black & Cherokee Jew) that was a bit of a gentle kick in the pants.

To summarize some of the key thoughts: There is antisemitism in lefty spaces because there is antisemitism EVERYWHERE - and racism, sexism, transphobia, classism, ableism, and the like. Leftists are not immune to these things. And so when someone like me says “well I’m not going to engage with some progressive cause because I’m bothered by the antisemitism” it’s like, anyone else of another marginalized identity could have the same excuse for not participating because they will inevitably run into someone who is being shitty about their identity. It’s good that we have ways to process these harmful experiences, and we should try to hold people accountable, but it’s not a good idea for our self-defensiveness to stop us completely from engaging.

I’m not solidly feeling any of this right now, but I am trying to sit with it in the discomfort.

Hi there,

Look, I definitely see where you're coming from and where this podcaster was coming from at least in theory, but I don't agree.

Leftists absolutely have all the same problems any other group has, and obviously we all have to work on our biases and movements all the time to try and root these things out.

This is different and goes beyond that though, because the brand of anti-Zionism that is mainstream amongst American goyische leftist movements and individuals is deeply antisemitic as a part of the cause. Anti-Zionism as an intra-Jewish discussion need not be [internalized] antisemitism, and there are plenty of ways that one can critique specific actions of the Israeli government that are proportionate, fair, and necessary (yes, even as an outsider.)

However, calls for the literal dissolution of the entire country without a thought or care for the safety and well-being of the affected Jews or the Jewish people as a whole, combined with a deep suspicion (and frequently outright hostility) towards Jews who bring up antisemitism (especially as it pertains to rhetoric around Israel) and then adding your regular run-of-the-mill antisemitism on top, are common and accepted in leftist spaces. In short: antisemitism isn't just one unfortunate pimple amongst many other expected blemishes on the face of modern leftism - it's actually frequently taken up as one of the causes of leftism. This form of antisemitism is seen as social justice, and so arguing against it is seen not for what it is (begging for people to add even a little nuance and critically examine a belief system that leads them to call for the genocide of half the Jewish population worldwide) but rather as arguing for whatever terrible thing they want to paint Israel as this week, whether or not it's true and whether or not such a label could just as easily be applied to groups and nations that they will give a pass to.

Meanwhile, most of the goyim arguing in support* of Israel are frequently right-wing conservatives whose other views on human rights and moral progress I find rather repugnant and who frequently utilize standard conservative talking points about Israel's more strident critics to attack them on other levels. For example, I cringe basically any time I see any right-wing critique of, say, the very real antisemitism of Cori Bush or Rashida Tlaib, because I just know it's gonna be racist as hell.

(The * is because I don't honestly classify a lot of this as support for the Jews, so much as a handy vehicle for their anti-Arab racism, Islamophobia, and unfair painting of all Palestinians and/or Palestinian rights movements as terrorism. I would also be remiss if I didn't say that the same is frequently true of certain batches of leftists whose anti-Zionism is more of a handy vehicle for antisemitism than genuine, thoughtful, and helpful advocacy for Palestinians.)

But there are some conservative voices that do have genuine support for Jews and are pro-Israel in a way that is more nuanced and doesn't just use it as a tactic. And when I see that, and especially when I hold it up next to leftist comrades who would never in a million years advocate for policies that would wipe out half the world population of another minority group but will happily repeat those talking points against Jews as if it were a social justice cause, it makes me question the validity of everything else they're saying.

And so I re-run that calculus on every social issue I'm passionate about, to see if maybe I'm on the wrong side of it, and every time I conclude I'm still very much not. So then I go back to the drawing board and reconsider Jewish history, identity, and peoplehood, and the conclusions I've come to about Zionism from those things, only to return to the same position I was in before. I've heard the arguments. I've actively sought out and considered the other side on this issue, hoping to understand something new, and each new source I read solidifies my opinion.

So then I'm stuck with concluding that my best option is to seek out like-minded Jews and when outside allies or work is needed, just kinda go into it accepting that a significant portion of the people I'm necessarily aligning myself with for other important causes would likely leave me and mine for dead under the right circumstances, and view that as good and right and just.

And while I don't let that change my voting behavior or advocacy at a practical level, it also doesn't change the fact that it fucking hurts and that I'm morally right to be angry about it.

[kimwexlers-brownhair]

please ignore this if you don’t want to get into in but could you hint at what the last post was about. worried i could be doing something harmful stupidly.

I've been seeing a lot of reblogs of people stirring shit with Jewish Tumblr, like in an exchange where someone was called a piece of shit for even living in Israel. These same people throw the word Zionist around without any thought. To me when I see that word online, I see the beginnings of an antisemitic conspiracy theory, because that is absolutely how it's used. I just want people -- and this is specifically to my fellow Westerners -- to think.

Netanyahu is a conservative demogogue along the same lines as Trump and Putin, and what's happening in Palestine is a crime against humanity. The genocide must end and the state of apartheid must end. Hamas is an antisemitic terrorist group, capable of spreading their own propaganda. The last time a terrorist group stirred up this much mass antisemitism by spreading lies and misinformation, World War II and the fucking holocaust happened.

All of these things are true, and it is a horrible, fragile situation in which, once again, civilians are the ones to suffer.

I am very close with a Jewish family. I know through stories what some of their family members went through down the generations, and I see the pain. I can't read shit like "Death to all Zionists" or "Being Israeli makes you a piece of shit" and just blithely go on with my day without thinking of what this all could lead to.

Think. Goddammit, think. My fellow Westerners, you will not help a single Palestinian by spreading antisemitic rhetoric. Always do your best to verify your news sources, no matter which "side" of this centuries old, complex history you're on. Israel's government has reason to lie, to exaggerate, and to spread false information. The Hamas has reason to lie, to exaggerate, and to spread false information. Think.

[apollos-olives]

Hi, I really appreciate your efforts to bring light to the unfair treatment of Palestinians. The massacre, the wrong done to them is harrowing. It brings tears to my eyes. May they find their peace and justice. I pray for their well-being.

My heart goes out to every single human who suffers.

Palestinians have suffered for over 80 years and they rightfully deserve true happiness. I pray and know their demands will be fulfilled soon.

There's one thing I don't agree with you about. You said you don't care about the CIVILIANS that died in Israel. Note how I used the word civilians. They maybe illegal immigrants for all I care, but they are humans as well. Why should they suffer even if the Israeli government uses them as shield/propaganda? They, like our Palestinian brothers and sisters are humans too. Their own leader forsakes them, and they die. But saying that we don't care about a human that dies for no fault of their own? Almighty will never forgive us for that.

I want peace to prevail, no human to suffer atrocities.

I hope you understand what I'm trying to say.

We need a revolution, we need to support Palestinians. We must not forget what the almighty teaches us about our rage that sometimes gets the better of us. We need to support right, and be the right that He taught us. I know feeling enraged is very natural. I feel enraged too. And I pray and remember what He teaches us.

Before you say anything about this, I speak and support Palestine publicly and fully,

Let our prayers be answered.

May the Palestinians find happiness and serenity.

sigh. this is what i'm talking about when people say "we must be peaceful and no one should get hurt 🥺���"

anon. i understand your point, and ya Allah, if it could be peaceful then it would be. but it can't. it was never, and never will be, peaceful. zionism is built on violence, and any drastic form of resistance will be violent in retaliation.

i'm gonna start by saying this. most israelis are zionists. there are very VERY few zionist-critical israelis. and often times those zionist critical israelis leave because they do not want to directly contribute to the ethnic cleansing and genocide against palestinians simply by living there. that being said, again, most israelis are zionists. they are directly contributing to the genocide of palestinians. no israeli adult is innocent, and none of them are civilians, since they are forced to serve in their military. there are a few people exempt from the non-"civilian" status, as i've talked about in my other posts. any settler who brings their child to israel is to be held responsible for their children's death, since they brought them there while directly violating international law and also contributing to genocide. am i saying children should die? absolutely fucking not. that's horrific. but i AM saying is that people WILL die regardless, because that's what revolution is. the most effective form of resistance is violence against the oppressor, and in this situation, israelis are the oppressors, and so violence WILL happen against them, even if they are "civilians". do israeli "civilians" deserve violence? that's a debatable and conditional topic, but we're not focusing on whether or not they "deserve" it, we're focusing on fighting our oppressors, which is naturally violent in itself.

the fact that israel uses it's own people as human shields and kills them amongst their own assaults against the palestinian people is disgusting, and horrific. but this also should lead people to understand why we need to dismantle israel entirely and liberate palestine.

please understand that i know what you're talking about, but violence against the oppressor is inevitable and while it's sad that "civilians" are caught up in it, that only should make people understand why it happens.

palestinians can't wait for a glorious miracle from God. we are taking this into our own hands, and we will be fighting back.

palestine will be free. glory to the resistance 🇵🇸

[onetimetwotimesthreetimess]

The post you reblog has so much misinformation in it, Israel is not an apartheid state, check it!!

And yes you should free Palestine from Hamas! They are to blame for what happening in Gaza right now, don't take my word for it listen to the brave people in Gaza that dare to speak:

https://www.instagram.com/reel/C0jfi3GIuQD/?igshid=NzBmMjdhZWRiYQ==

Oh and pls check Yoseph Haddad an Israeli arab who explained the complicit amazingly! (and proved you wrong about all the apartheid nonsense)

Pls don't spread misinformation, I know you won't apologize or anything, and many have already seen it, but at least take it down because it's really irresponsible, it spreads hatred towards Jews in the world, and in the end they can't go to their university because they're threatened and yes this is the reality of jew right now.

And if you can admitted the yes Israel was a victim to Hamas terrorism on October 7, that hundreds of Innocent civilians were murdered with inhuman cruelty, that entire families were burned in their homes, that women and young girls were raped and murdered, that the atrocities in Israel on October 7th were too horrible to describe you are simply anti-Semitic (I really hope you are not because I do love you writing but I am not sure I can enjoy it anymore…)

Btw It's really cynical to compare Israel to the Nazis, so if you're already at it, please also read about the Holocaust

I do not get on discourses on tumblr because my real life involves a lot of activism so I avoid that in online spaces. But the cause of Palestine is too important for me to not reply to this. But like I said yesterday, this is the final time I would be commenting on this, here on tumblr.

1. Israel is an apartheid state. It always have been. Apartheid stands for racial, cultural or gender segregation leading to political, economic org social discrimination of a specific community. Israel has been segregating the entirety of Palestine since the Nabka in 1948.

Source: Amnesty International’s 212 page report.

2. Hamas is not a terrorist organisation. Hamas is a militant resistance group. Every country/group that has been oppressed, has the right to self defence under the International Human Rights Law. Israel has absolutely no right to self defence as it is the settler colony not the other way around.

2.1: there is no actual proof of any babies being beheaded. None whatsoever. When someone uses the word ‘decapicated’ it plants a very specific picture in one’s mind, and this picture is what Israel government is using to fuel fire to something that’s not true. That’s propaganda. But there are hundreds and hundreds of proof of bombing of hospitals, children being killed, others being stripped, tortured, etc.

3. USA vetoed for a second time against the call for a ceasefire. And Israel thanked them for that. If you think that is them trying to protect the world, then I hope against hope that I never have to be a part of the world that you want to create.

4. I feel absolutely no shame in comparing Israel to Nazi Germany because a genocide is a genocide be it against Jews or the Palestinians. A genocide is a genocide.

5. I will not stop talking about the Israeli apartheid but if you believe it to be an attack against the Jews, that is your issue. Anti-Zionism is not and never will be Anti-Semitism.

6. The oppressed have the right to mobilise, to self-defence, to resistance. The settler colony does not.

7. I am quite okay with losing a few readers if it means I stand up to what is right. It is not a loss.

Here is a list of all the human rights violations Israel’s committed against the Palestinians.

Please check this page, they have the resources for all the mentioned violations. Past and present.

I can understand that being born in Israel, being raised and indoctrinated can make it difficult for you. But you have access to all the resources, access to everything that can help you find out the truth. For you to question your government. Do that. It is difficult but not impossible. It is your duty and responsibility to do that.

Do not come into my inbox until you do that.

Thank you.

From The River To The Sea, Palestine Will Be Free

[goldheartedsky]

This is gonna be the last thing I post about this but I’m exhausted and some of you truly don’t understand any kind of nuance.

I know this might be hard to hear, but multiple things can be true at once.

Hamas is a terrorist organization. The Israeli government is doing unspeakable horrors to Palestinian civilians. Celebrating Israeli civilian deaths simply because they’re Israeli is disgusting. Jerusalem was originally a Jewish city long before it was stolen. Palestinian citizens deserve safety in their own homes. Most Israelis were born in Israel and have family ties to North Africa/Middle East. Hamas does not care about the Palestinian citizens it claims to be protecting. Most Israelis are far browner than most of you think they are. The denial of deaths as “propaganda” IS Islamophobic & antisemitic.

These are civilians dying. These are children dying. And until you all understand that this world is not built in absolutes, it’s not going to stop anytime soon.

[paopuofhearts]

I had an interesting conversation on clarification today.

A lot of people throw out the concept of settler colonialism and apartheid and Land Back in relation to Israel by pointing out that Jewish people lived in the Middle East "peacefully" before the creation of Israel, so Israel shouldn't need to exist. Which is - not necessarily true.

And apparently, a lot of people who throw out the concept of settler colonialism and apartheid and Land Back also turn around and say "if that happened before, it can happen again: Jewish people can go back to where they were before and live peacefully or wherever" - which is *also* not necessarily true, historically or currently.

Criticizing the current Israeli government is important, the same way you would with any other government. Criticizing the concept of what Zionism looks like in application is valid, the same way with any other ideology. What is happening to Palestinians is horrific. You should not be supporting the Israeli government, because they are purposely encouraging violence against their people in order to have an excuse to further terrorize Palestinians, and [as such] continue to push the cycle to terrorize Palestinians. You should not be supporting Hamas, because they are *doing the exact same thing*.

From what I've seen and heard and experienced, there's a huge issue where a lot of people who link the concept of settler colonialism and apartheid and Land Back are *also* saying that Jewish people should not exist in the Middle East, mirroring centuries of the same antisemitic rhetoric that said Jewish people should not exist *anywhere*. There is a lot of historic erasure of the fact that Jewish people have *always* existed there [due to the implications of concepts like settler colonialism and Land Back]. There is a lot of historic erasure of the fact that Jewish people have *always* been targeted for genocidal movements [similar to white supremacist movements that say things like the Holocaust never happened, because Israel is pushing Palestinians towards diaspora and / or genocide linked to the concept of apartheid].

There is a huge push in rhetoric that violence against Israeli's [and by extension Jews] is the only answer. There is a huge push in rhetoric saying that Israel shouldn't just be dismantled but completely wiped off the map [alongside the Israeli, and by extension Jewish, population living there]. There is a huge push in rhetoric saying that it's valid to kill all Israeli's [and by extension Jews] because that is what fighting back against settler colonialism and apartheid and Land Back should look like. There is a huge push in rhetoric saying that it's only fair that Israeli's [and by extension Jews] should die because they kill Palestinians at higher rates, and that Israeli's [and therefore Jews] are an extension of their government.

And maybe that's not what you mean. I hope that's not what you mean. But that's what I see and hear and experience when these are all put together.

It is *absolutely* fucked up if you can sit here and separate people from government for literally everyone else *but* the people being harmed in this conflict. It is *absolutely* fucked up if your idea of stopping genocide against one group is to turn around and commit genocide against another group. (Especially considering said group has faced genocidal movements for centuries, which is what brought the idea of Zionism and recreating Israel [yes, *re*creating, because it existed for centuries] to the modern era).

It is *absolutely* fucked up that you can find Neo-Nazi's and White Supremacists at *both* Pro-Palestinian rallies and Pro-Israel rallies because of this shit, since pushing propaganda gets *both* groups killed.

So really fucking consider how your words and your actions are impacting actual help and actual support towards what's going on - because a lot of the shit I've seen people spread is ignorant at best, and perpetuating the cycle of violence at worst.

(Also, I've seen and heard a lot of people say the phrase "I Stand With Israel" is meant to mean the Jewish people and Israeli citizens who are being attacked. I guarantee you that is not how most people will interpret that: they'll see it as support for Netanyahu and Likud and those continuing to force anti-Palestinian action and propaganda.)

[mchiti]

re: india. i am part indian and have muslim family living there (who are native there). there is a horrid anti-muslim agenda there right now and has been for a while. muslim businesses are burnt, muslim girls have their hijabs ripped off, aren't allowed to wear it to school, etc. the sort of propaganda that the ruling political party, the right-wing BJP (who subscribe to the hindutva ideology), feeds to its followers is that muslim indians should be ethnically cleansed from the country. the sort of things that hindutva supporters say on social media about muslims is absolutely vile and on par with what israelis say. they get so excited whenever muslims are oppressed or persecuted anywhere in the world. i wish more people knew about this and i wish arab muslims around the world would show up for south asian muslims the way we show up for them.

Friend, thank you for telling me this. I was actually hoping to read more into it and to have context from Indians in particular so thank you for sharing! Yeah, I imagined there was an anti-muslim agenda because seriously, I see Indians posting in support of Isr*el all the time on social media and as much as you don't want to generalise (especially with a complex and big country like India) it's clear there is something behind it here. I'm very sorry to hear about this, also because I know hindutva ideology is basically inspired by european nazi-fascist nationalism, it now stands with zionism but they all behave like nazi-fascism behaved and the irony of this. It's literally a right-wing party in power threatening the constitution, speaking to huge masses of people...so scary, I didn't know it was this bad. And obviously it explains while India was the only country to abstain voting in South Asia basically....

You are right, Arab countries are not doing enough and Arab Muslims are not speaking up enough. Arab governments took very questionable stances in the past years (and a lot of them allowed Isr*el with funds and deals, we won't forget this...certainly I won't ever forget this with Morocco either) but it's also true Arab muslims are not vocal enough. It's true they tend to overlook on South Asian Muslims frequently and they care more about arab-unity than muslim-unity. In my ideal world Morocco would not be defined as an "arab country" anyway, but only as an african country, since Amazigh people exist too and they are a vast part of its population. I don't know what we can do about this apart from raising awareness, which I will do. Inchallah there is going to be enough cultural resistance there but I won't stay silent now. sending love 💕

[xtruss]

Israeli soldiers detain blindfolded Palestinian men in a military truck in the southern Gaza Strip on Nov. 19, 2023. Photo: Mahmud Hams/AFP via Getty Images

War Criminal And Genocidal Satan-Yahu’s War On Truth! “Illegal, Terrorist Regime of The Zionist 🐖 🐷 🐗 Israel’s” Ruthless Propaganda Campaign To Dehumanize Palestinians

— Jeremy Scahill | February 7 2024 | The Intercept

WO WEEKS BEFORE Hamas commandos led a series of raids into Israel on October 7, Benjamin Netanyahu stood before an empty chamber at the United Nations headquarters in New York City. The Israeli prime minister brandished a map of what he promised could be the “New Middle East.” It depicted a state of Israel that stretched continuously from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea. On this map, Gaza and the West Bank were erased. Palestinians did not exist.

“What a historic change for my country! You see, the land of Israel is situated on the crossroads between Africa, Asia, and Europe,” Netanyahu bellowed at a handful of spectators in the large hall, nearly all of whom were his loyalists or underlings. “For centuries, my country was repeatedly invaded by empires passing through it in their campaigns of plunder and conquest elsewhere. But today, as we tear down walls of enmity, Israel can become a bridge of peace and prosperity between these continents.”

During that speech, Netanyahu portrayed the full normalizing of relations with Saudi Arabia, an initiative spearheaded under the Trump administration and embraced by the Biden White House, as the linchpin of his vision for this “new” reality, one which would open the door to a “visionary corridor that will stretch across the Arabian Peninsula and Israel. It will connect India to Europe with maritime links, rail links, energy pipelines, fiber-optic cables.”

He was speaking on the grand stage of the U.N. General Assembly, but no world leaders bothered to attend. Outside, some 2,000 people, a mixture of American Jews and Israeli citizens, protested his attacks on the independence of the Israeli judiciary system. The scene served as a reminder of how deeply unpopular his far-right governing coalition, not to mention Netanyahu himself, had become in Israel. At that moment, it seemed that Netanyahu was pushed against the ropes, in a losing battle to continue his political reign.

Netanyahu is using the horrors of October 7 to wage the crusade he’s been preparing for his entire political career.

Just days later, as Hamas commandos penetrated the barriers encircling Gaza and embarked on their deadly raids targeting several military installations as well as kibbutzim, everything changed in an instant. Everything, that is, except the primary agenda that has been at the center of Netanyahu’s long political career: the absolute destruction of Palestine and its people.

Just as the Bush administration exploited the 9/11 attacks to justify a sweeping war in which it declared the world a battlefield, Netanyahu is using the horrors of October 7 to wage the crusade he’s been preparing for his entire political career. With his grip on power fading last fall, the October 7 attacks provided him with just the opportunity he needed, and he hitched his political survival to the war on Gaza and what could be his last chance to eliminate Israel’s Palestinian problem once and for all.

In that sense, Bibi was saved by Hamas.

Prime Minister of Israel Benjamin Netanyahu shows a graphic illustrating his “New Middle East” during his speech at the 78th Session of the U.N. General Assembly on Sept. 22, 2023. Photo: Lev Radin/Pacific Press/LightRocket via Getty Images

Intelligence Failures

Four months in, Netanyahu’s war of annihilation against Gaza has become a guerrilla war of attrition. Not a single Israeli hostage has been freed through military force, and Hamas has shown an enduring resilience and ability to pick off Israel Defense Forces soldiers. The Israeli public, outside of the ideological true believers intent on occupying and settling Gaza, is showing signs of fatigue and desperation. Many family members of captives are growing louder in their demands for an immediate deal with Hamas that centers the lives of their loved ones over the political agenda laid out by Netanyahu and his clique. Some have demanded new elections or Netanyahu’s resignation. Protests against the war, though small, are beginning to grow inside Israel, with some demonstrations echoing global calls demanding a humanitarian ceasefire and an end to Israeli occupation of Palestinian territory.

As the death toll in Gaza surpasses a conservative estimate of 27,000 lives, many of the core narratives deployed by the Israeli and U.S. governments to justify the slaughter are coming under increased scrutiny; some have been definitively debunked. In Israel, this is a delicate line of inquiry. That Hamas killed large numbers of Israelis is not in doubt. But how they managed to do so while living under the lauded and vigilant eyes of the Mossad, Shin Bet, the Israeli Security Agency, and the IDF is the subject of mounting public attention.

There have been several credible reports that Israeli intelligence analysts warned that Hamas operatives appeared to be training for raids into Israel. The New York Times and other outlets have reported on the existence of a 40-page internal Hamas document code-named “Jericho Wall.” Purportedly obtained by Israeli intelligence, it is said to lay out detailed plans by Hamas to conduct precisely the type of assault against Israeli military installations and villages that occurred on October 7.

While warnings from Israeli analysts who reviewed the document were reportedly brushed aside by senior officials, last July a signals intelligence officer urged the chain of command to take it seriously. Noting a recent daylong training exercise by Hamas in Gaza, the analyst asserted that the training precisely mirrored the operations laid out in the document. “It is a plan designed to start a war,” she pleaded. “It’s not just a raid on a village.”

Top: Hundreds of vehicles damaged or destroyed during the October 7 Hamas-led attacks and subsequent counterstrikes by the Israeli military are collected at a site in Tkuma, Israel, on Nov. 5, 2023. Photo: Noam Galai/Getty Images

Bottom: The destruction in the area where the Al-Maqousi Towers, Al-Mashtal Hotel, and Al-Khalidi Mosque stood after the Israeli army withdrew from north of Gaza City on Feb. 3, 2024. Photo: Omar Ishaq/picture alliance via Getty Images

The night before Hamas’s raid, intelligence analysts began reporting significant evidence suggesting that Hamas might be preparing for an attack inside Israel. The head of Shin Bet traveled to the south and orders were issued to deploy a special counterterror force to confront any potential incursions, according to an investigative report in the Israeli publication Yedioth Ahronoth.

Shortly after 3 a.m. on October 7, a senior intelligence official concluded the activity in Gaza was likely another Hamas training exercise, saying, “We still believe that [Hamas leader Yahya] Sinwar is not pivoting towards an escalation.”

A few hours later, as Israeli officials gathered in a command center chaotically scrambling to deploy forces to respond to the multipronged attacks led by Hamas, a senior officer silenced the room: “The Gaza Division was overpowered.”

Early on in the war against Gaza, Netanyahu sought to deflect blame for failing to foresee Hamas’s attacks onto his intelligence services. “Contrary to the false claims: Under no circumstances and at no stage was Prime Minister Netanyahu warned of Hamas’s war intentions,” read a tweet posted on Netanyahu’s official Twitter account. “On the contrary, all the security officials, including the head of military intelligence and the head of the Shin Bet, assessed that Hamas had been deterred and was looking for a settlement. This assessment was submitted again and again to the prime minister and the cabinet by all the security forces and intelligence community, up until the outbreak of the war.”

But serious questions lingered over how Hamas was able to lay siege to large sections of what Israel calls the “Gaza envelope” and whether Netanyahu had knowledge that an attack of this very nature was being planned in full view of Israel’s extensive surveillance systems and spy networks. There is also a mounting body of evidence to indicate that Israeli forces were given orders on October 7 to stop Hamas’s attacks at all costs, including the killing of Israeli civilians taken captive by Palestinian fighters. The Israeli military has indicated that it plans to conduct an “uncompromising” investigation into the intelligence failures, drawing the ire of some far-right members of Netanyahu’s government.

Under fire from his own ministers and supporters for impugning Israeli military and intelligence agencies, Netanyahu apologized for his comments, deleted the tweet, and then shifted to the stance he now repeats: There will be a time for such inquiries — but only after Israel achieves total victory in Gaza and eliminates Hamas. “The only thing that I intend to have resign is Hamas,” he said in November. “We’re going to resign them to the dustbin of history.”

Information Warfare

The violent ethnonationalist ideology at the center of Netanyahu’s reign was born before his tenure and will endure when he’s gone. But his rule has embodied the most extremist and destructive version of the Israeli state project.

Netanyahu understands the power of defining and dominating the narrative, particularly when targeting it to U.S. audiences. For decades, he has advanced the Israeli propaganda doctrine of hasbara — the notion that Israelis must be aggressive about “explaining” and justifying their actions to the West — to manipulate his adversaries and allies, domestic and international, into serving his objectives.

Netanyahu’s “vision of himself as the chief defender of the Jewish people against calamity allowed him to justify almost anything that would keep him in power,” observed former President Barack Obama in his 2020 memoir.

In the aftermath of October 7, Netanyahu cast Israel’s siege of a tiny strip of land the size of Philadelphia as a war of the worlds in which the very fate of humanity was at stake. “It’s not only our war. It’s your war too,” Netanyahu said in his first interview on CNN after the October 7 attacks. “It’s the battle of civilization against barbarism. And if we don’t win here, this scourge will pass. The Middle East will pass to other places. The Middle East will fall. Europe is next. You will be next.”

The Israeli government rapidly deployed a multipronged propaganda strategy to win unprecedented support from the U.S. and other Western governments for a sweeping war against the entire population of Gaza. To oppose Israel’s war is antisemitic; to question its assertions about the events of October 7 is akin to Holocaust denial; to protest the mass killing of Palestinian civilians is to do the bidding of Hamas.

At the center of Israel’s information warfare campaign is a tactical mission to dehumanize Palestinians and to flood the public discourse with a stream of false, unsubstantiated, and unverifiable allegations.

“We were struck Saturday by an attack whose savagery I can say we have not seen since the Holocaust,” Netanyahu told President Joe Biden in a phone call on October 11. “They took dozens of children, bound them up, burned them and executed them.” He added: “We have never seen such savagery in the history of the state. They’re even worse than ISIS and we need to treat them as such.”

“We are fighting human animals and we are acting accordingly,” said Israel’s Defense Minister Yoav Gallant on October 9.

The message of these statements and others like them was clear: Israel is confronting monsters, and no one has any business telling the Jewish state, established in the aftermath of World War II under the mantra of “Never again,” how to respond to an attempted genocide. Israeli officials routinely invoke the Holocaust, compare Hamas to the Nazis or to ISIS, and portray the events of October 7 as evidence of an organized effort to commit genocide against the Jewish people.

On October 10, three days after the attacks, the Israeli military organized a tour for international journalists to view the scene at Kfar Aza Kibbutz. As they guided reporters and camera crews through the community, IDF officials spread rumors that as many as 40 babies had been murdered by Hamas, some of them beheaded. “It’s something I never saw in my life. It’s something I used to imagine of my grandmother and my grandfather in Europe and other places,” an Israeli general told reporters. “We got very, very disturbing reports that came from the ground that there were babies that had been beheaded,” said IDF spokesperson Jonathan Conricus in a briefing for international journalists. “I admit it took us some time to really understand and to verify that report. It was hard to believe that even Hamas could perform such a barbaric act.”

Lt. Col. Guy Basson, deputy commander of the Israeli army’s Kfir Brigade, claimed that he saw the aftermath of eight babies who were executed in a nursery at Kibbutz Be’eri. Among the victims, Basson asserted, was also a survivor of the Auschwitz death camp. “I see the number engraved on her arm, and you say to yourself, she went through the Holocaust in Auschwitz and ended up dying on Kibbutz Be’eri.” Another Israeli soldier told a journalist that “babies and children were hung on a clothes line in a row.”

President Joe Biden speaks with Eli Beer, founder of volunteer EMS organization United Hatzalah of Israel on Oct. 18, 2023, in Tel Aviv. Beer told several graphic stories about the Hamas attacks that were later debunked. Photo: Brendan Smialowski/AFP via Getty Images

Three weeks after the October 7 attacks, Eli Beer, the head of a volunteer EMS squad in Israel, traveled to the U.S. and addressed a gathering at the convention of the Republican Jewish Coalition in Las Vegas. “I saw in my own eyes a woman who was pregnant, four months pregnant,” he said. “They came into her house, in front of her kids, they opened up her stomach took out the baby, and stabbed the little, tiny baby in front of her and then shot her in front of her family and then they killed the rest of the kids.”

Beer offered graphic descriptions of other horrors he claimed to have witnessed. “These bastards put these babies in an oven and put on the oven. We found the kid a few hours later,” he told the U.S. audience on October 28. “I saw little kids who were beheaded. We didn’t know which head belonged to which kid.” Beer, whose stories were widely reported in the international media, also met with Biden and Secretary of State Antony Blinken in Israel soon after the attack.

But there is a problem with the gut-wrenching narratives that have bolstered the underlying justification for the slaughter of Gaza: They are either complete fabrications or have not been substantiated with a shred of evidence. Many have been thoroughly disproven by major Israeli media outlets.

In the immediate aftermath of the attacks, Netanyahu and other Israeli officials presented U.S. and international leaders with a range of graphic images and videos along with unverified narrative explanations for what they allegedly depicted. “It’s simply depravity in the worst imaginable way,” Blinken said after first viewing the photos. “Images are worth a thousand words. These images may be worth a million.”

“In A Coup For Terrorist Satan-Yahu’s Hasbara Campaign, ‘Demented, War Criminal, Genocidal Biden’ And Other Leaders Have Laundered Many of Terrorist Isra-hell’s Obscene Lies.”

In a coup for Netanyahu’s hasbara campaign, Biden and other leaders have laundered many of Israel’s obscene lies. Beginning just days after October 7, Biden repeatedly claimed that he personally saw photographs of beheaded babies and more atrocities. Even after the White House admitted Biden had seen no such photos, he continued to make the allegation, including after visiting Netanyahu and other Israeli officials in Tel Aviv. “I saw some of the photographs when I was there — tying a mother and her daughter together on a rope and then pouring kerosene on them and then burning them, beheading infants, doing things that are just inhuman — totally, completely inhuman,” Biden said at a campaign event in December.

Blinken told the U.S. Senate another harrowing story about how Hamas terrorists had tortured a family in their living room while intermittently taking breaks to eat a meal their victims had placed on the dining table before the horrors began that morning. “A young boy and girl, 6 and 8 years old, and their parents around the breakfast table. The father’s eye gouged out in front of his kids. The mother’s breast cut off, the girl’s foot amputated, the boy’s fingers cut off before they were executed,” Blinken said. “And then their executioners sat down and had a meal. That is what this society is dealing with.”

The story Blinken told about terrorists eating a meal while torturing an Israeli family, as well as some of the assertions about decapitated babies, was based on the speculative fiction invented by Yossi Landau, an official from the scandal-plagued private Israeli rescue organization Zaka, who has repeatedly spread wildly false stories.

Army rescue and Zaka crews search Kibbutz Be’eri, one of the sites attacked by Hamas fighters, on Oct. 22, 2023. Members of Zaka, a private Israeli rescue organization, repeatedly spread disinformation, some of which was promoted by U.S. officials. Photo: Amir Levy/Getty Images/Getty Images

There was no Holocaust survivor killed at Kibbutz Be’eri that day. There were no mass beheadings of babies, no group executions in a nursery, no children hung from clotheslines, and no infants placed in ovens. No pregnant woman had her stomach cut open and the fetus knifed in front of her and her other children. These stories are entirely fictional, a set of audacious lies weaponized to generate the type of collective rage used to justify the unjustifiable.

According to major Israeli media outlets that have worked diligently to identify all the victims of the October 7 attacks, there was one infant killed that day: a 9-month-old named Mila Cohen who was shot dead at Kibbutz Be’eri as her mother held her in her arms. Cohen’s mother, who was wounded by gunfire, survived. Among the other civilians killed on October 7, seven of them were between the ages of 2 and 9 years, and 28 were between the ages of 10 and 19. Fourteen of these children died in Hamas rocket attacks, not at the hands of the armed commandos who stormed the kibbutzes.

There is no doubt that widespread atrocities and war crimes were committed during the Hamas-led attacks of October 7. It is also true that Israeli military, government, and rescue officials have engaged in a deliberate misinformation campaign about the nature of many deaths that occurred that day.

“These Stories Are A Set of Audacious Lies Weaponized To Generate The Type of Collective Rage Used To Justify The Unjustifiable.”

Israeli officials have toured the world with a film produced at the direction of the IDF. The 47-minute “Bearing Witness to the October 7 Massacre” features video allegedly seized from Palestinian attackers equipped with GoPro cameras and cellphones, according to Israeli officials. The movie has not been released to the public and has only been available via special invitation from the Israeli government. Its audiences have included Hollywood celebrities, dozens of U.S. lawmakers and government officials, journalists, and global luminaries; it has screened at various international venues, including museums established in memory of the Holocaust. While hours of footage of the attacks and their aftermath are available online, including video shot by Palestinians who participated in the raids, the Israeli government has said the footage is too sensitive to be publicly released.

An IDF official, in uniform, personally delivers the professionally produced Digital Cinema Package for the screenings, and viewers are required to sign nondisclosure agreements affirming they will not record or distribute the footage. “It will change the way you view the Middle East and the way you view the war in Gaza,” said Gilad Erdan, Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations, at the Los Angeles premiere of the footage last November. The film was characterized in media accounts as depicting “murder, beheadings, rapes and other atrocities against Jewish adults and children.”

The event, at the Museum of Tolerance, was organized by Israeli actor Gal Gadot, star of the “Wonder Woman” movies, for film executives and other members of the Hollywood industry. “Hamas must be eradicated. This is the only way to prevent another massacre,” Erdan added. “If Israel doesn’t eradicate this evil, mark my words: The West is next.”

While Israel has emphasized how incendiary the footage is, British journalist Owen Jones, who attended an IDF screening in the U.K., said a “significant amount” of the video is already in the public domain. He said that while there was footage of one IDF soldier who had apparently been decapitated, as well as the already public footage of an unsuccessful attempt to behead a migrant Thai worker with a garden tool, there was no footage substantiating allegations of torture, sexual violence, and mass beheadings, including of babies or other children. “Clearly this footage hasn’t been selected at random. You would expect it to be the worst material that they have,” Jones said. “This isn’t to say none of this happened, it’s just not in the footage, which has been provided by the Israeli authorities.”

Israel’s hasbara campaign is reminiscent of the Bush administration’s monthslong carnival of lies, sanitized and promoted by major media outlets, about alleged weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. And Biden directly participated in President George W. Bush’s campaign as well. In his October 2002 Senate floor speech endorsing war against Iraq, Biden declared that Saddam Hussein “possesses chemical and biological weapons and is seeking nuclear weapons.”

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu hugs U.S. President Joe Biden upon his arrival at Tel Aviv’s Ben Gurion Airport on Oct. 18, 2023. Photo: Brendan Smialowski/AFP via Getty Images

Allegations of Systematic Rape

The Israeli propaganda machine is well oiled. Anyone can look back at Israel’s four-month war against Gaza and trace a pattern: Israel chooses an issue and demands global attention to its agenda at the expense of any other matter.

When news organizations began reporting on the civilian toll of Israel’s initial airstrikes against Gaza, the government accused photographers for major news organizations of being Hamas members or sympathizers who had foreknowledge of the October 7 attacks. Netanyahu said the journalists were “accomplices in crimes against humanity.” Israel then portrayed Gaza’s hospitals as secret Hamas command centers, an allegation that the Biden administration bolstered as the IDF prepared to lay siege to Al-Shifa Hospital last November.

Throughout the war, Israel has sought to direct media and global attention to various new smoking-gun narratives. And in nearly every case, it succeeds in getting the U.S. on board to launder and promote the talking points.

In late November, as the civilian death toll in Gaza climbed, Israel was struggling to retain its dominance of the narrative. Global demands for a ceasefire were mounting, and even some of Israel’s allies were expressing horror at the indiscriminate killing of women and children and the worsening humanitarian catastrophe.

A weeklong truce, during which captives were exchanged, raised hopes that a more enduring peace deal could be on the horizon, despite Israeli insistence that that was out of the question. “A prolonged ceasefire that allows more hostages to be released, and that evolves towards a permanent ceasefire linked to a political process, is something we have consensus on,” said the EU’s top foreign policy official Josep Borrell.

Days earlier, the prime ministers of Spain and Belgium traveled to the Rafah border to push for such a deal and drew the fury of the Israeli government when they publicly condemned the indiscriminate killing of Palestinian civilians. Eli Cohen, then the Israeli foreign minister, accused the leaders of offering “support [for] terrorism,” while Netanyahu released a statement condemning them because they “did not place total responsibility on Hamas for the crimes against humanity it perpetrated.”

“Anyone Can Look Back At Terrorist Isra-hell’s Four-Month War Against Gaza And Trace A Pattern: Terrorist Isra-hell Chooses An Issue And Demands Global Attention To Its Agenda At The Expense of Any Other Matter.”

It was at this moment that the Israeli government decided it needed to remind the world of Israel’s victimhood and launched a new phase of the hasbara campaign. It began accusing the international community of standing silent in the face of what Israeli officials described as a widespread campaign of rape and sexual violence aimed at Jewish women and orchestrated by Hamas on October 7. By early December, the issue had become a major focus of conservative media and Israel’s allies.

“I say to the women’s rights organizations, to the human rights organizations, you’ve heard of the rape of Israeli women, horrible atrocities, sexual mutilation? Where the hell are you?” Netanyahu said in a December 5 speech in Tel Aviv.

That day, on the other side of the globe, Biden was at a campaign fundraising event in Boston. “Over the past few weeks, survivors and witnesses of the attacks have shared the horrific accounts of unimaginable cruelty: reports of women raped — repeatedly raped and their bodies being mutilated while still alive, of women corpses being desecrated, and Hamas terrorists inflicting as much pain and suffering as — on women and girls as possible and then murdering them. And it’s appalling,” Biden said. “The world can’t just look away — what’s going on. It’s on all of us — the government, international organizations, civil society, individual citizens — to forcefully condemn the sexual violence of Hamas terrorists without equivocation — without equivocation, without exception.”

From the earliest moments following the October 7 attacks, Israel charged that women had been raped by Hamas fighters, though it was often an allegation made in sequence alongside other alleged atrocities. But in mid-November, those assertions began evolving into a sustained public blitz, accusing Hamas of instituting a plan to “systematically rape women.” Israel government spokesperson Eylon Levy spoke of a “Hamas rapist machine.”

“Hamas used rape and sexual violence as weapons of war,” charged Erdan, the U.N. ambassador. “These were not spur-of-the-moment decisions to defile and mutilate girls and parade them while onlookers cheered; rather, this was premeditated.”

To date, there has been no credible evidence presented publicly that such a campaign took place, and Hamas has vehemently denied that its fighters committed any acts of rape or sexual assault. The fact that Israel has not produced forensic evidence for individual rapes does not prove that no such deeds took place. Rape investigations are often complex, particularly when the crime occurs amid a chaotic scene of mass violence. Sexual violence is common in warfare, and it often takes years for the full story of such crimes to emerge.

But there is a difference between making specific allegations of rape or sexual assault and charging that organized mass rape was a central component of an operation meticulously planned over the course of years. Israel’s evidence of the latter comes nowhere near to measuring up to its claims.

Israeli rescue workers as well as civilian and military medical officials have described evidence of dead women who were naked or had clothing removed, as well as women who were subjected to genital mutilation, though they have not released documentary or forensic evidence.

But many of the most graphic allegations of mass rapes have been offered by Israeli military or rescue officials who acknowledge they have no training or expertise in forensics. Some of them, whose claims have been featured in many media accounts, also spread false stories about other alleged atrocities.

Shari Mendes, an IDF reservist originally from New Jersey, speaks at a conference organized by Israel at the U.N. on Dec. 4, 2023. Mendes has been one of the most prominent voices alleging widespread sexual violence occurred on October 7. Photo: Lev Radin/Pacific Press/LightRocket via Getty Images

Shari Mendes, an architect serving in the IDF reserves in a rabbinical unit, was deployed to a morgue to prepare bodies for burial after the attacks. An American originally from New Jersey, Mendes did multiple TV and print interviews about her experiences. “We have seen women who have been raped, from the age of children through to the elderly,” she told reporters, emphasizing, “This is not just something we saw on the internet, we saw these bodies with our own eyes.”

For months, Mendes has served as one of the most visible witnesses bolstering Israel’s allegations of systematic rape. But few media outlets featuring her claims have mentioned the valid concerns about her credibility and her history of promoting a false story. She told the Daily Mail last October, “A baby was cut out of a pregnant woman and beheaded and then the mother was beheaded.”

On December 5, as Israel engaged in a global media push around its allegations that Hamas had committed mass rapes, Mendes was a featured speaker at an event in New York organized by Israel’s mission to the U.N. on sexual violence and the October 7 attacks. The Times of Israel reported that Mendes “is not legally qualified to determine rape.”

The observations of first responders or members of religious burial units, particularly those without relevant scientific credentials, are not a replacement for forensic documentation of an uncontaminated crime scene. Israeli authorities have said evidence that would typically be taken in cases of suspected sexual assault was not recovered in the aftermath of the attacks, attributing this failure to a combination of the magnitude of the deaths, the charred nature of some bodies, and to Jewish burial practices.

Some of the evidence publicly cited by Israeli officials is testimony provided by Zaka, the private Israeli rescue organization whose members have been widely documented to have spread false allegations. Haaretz published an exposé documenting Zaka’s role in the rampant mishandling of forensic evidence that day and its subsequent campaign of misinformation.

The Israeli government has maintained that it possesses evidence that has not been made public and has enlisted international teams of forensic and other crime scene experts. Israel’s Ministry of Welfare and Social Affairs told the New York Times there are “at least three women and one man who were sexually assaulted and survived.”

But other Israeli officials have stated that there are no known living victims of rape that day, while some have described the challenge of identifying potential victims.

On December 28, the New York Times published what instantly became the most widely circulated news story purporting to document a widespread campaign of sexual violence orchestrated by Hamas. That story has come under intense scrutiny, including within the Times newsroom.

The family of Gal Abdush, whose alleged rape was at the center of the Times article, disputed the article’s assertion she was raped. One relative also suggested the family was pressured, under false pretenses, to speak with the reporters. Abdush’s sister wrote on Instagram that the Times reporters “mentioned they want to write a report in memory of Gal, and that’s it. If we knew that the title would be about rape and butchery, we’d never accept that.” A woman who filmed Abdush on October 7 told YNet that Israeli journalists working for the Times had pressured her into giving the paper access to her photos and videos. “They called me again and again and explained how important it is to Israeli hasbara,” she recalled. This series of events was documented extensively by Mondoweiss.

Critics of the Times story also pointed to the inconsistencies of the accounts of some of the alleged witnesses featured, as well as to its use of information provided by members of Zaka.

Several Israelis who survived the October 7 attacks have publicly claimed that they witnessed rapes by Palestinian assailants, but Israeli investigators have said they are still searching for supporting evidence. Authorities also say they must match alleged victims with specific eyewitness testimony in order to bring potential charges.

What often goes unmentioned in Israel’s sweeping allegations is an important fact: Hamas was not the only Palestinian group to attack Israelis on October 7. Many individuals who had no knowledge of Hamas’s plans poured across the border and committed acts of violence in what has been referred to as an unplanned “second wave.” Some of these non-Hamas Palestinians also took Israeli hostages back to Gaza.

One survivor of the Nova music festival massacre, a veteran of Israel’s special forces, has given multiple interviews to major media outlets, including the New York Times, about a rape he claims to have witnessed. During an appearance on CNN, Raz Cohen described the assailants as “Five guys — five civilians from Gaza, normal guys, not soldiers, not Nukhba,” referring to Hamas’s elite commando force. “It was regular people from Gaza with normal clothes.” Cohen, it must be noted, has told varying, sometimes contradictory, versions of what he witnessed.

Israel has painted all actions on October 7 as being committed by Hamas and its fighters. That storyline obviously serves Israel’s military and political objectives, but the truth is more complicated.

In light of Israel’s well-documented campaign of lies and misinformation about other events on October 7, incendiary allegations, such as claims that Hamas engaged in a deliberate campaign of systematic rape, should be viewed with extreme skepticism.

Members of the media go on a press tour organized by the Israeli military on Oct. 22, 2023, at Kibbutz Be’eri, which was targeted by Hamas during the October 7 attacks. Witnesses said that an Israeli tank fired on a house filled with Israeli civilians held hostage on October 7. Photo: Thomas Coex/AFP via Getty Images

Friendly Fire

As many U.S. media outlets and politicians have promoted and laundered Israel’s claims, spreading them far and wide, there have been strong voices among the Israeli public and media that have exhibited skepticism. This is especially true regarding the actions taken by Israeli forces as they responded to the October 7 attacks. Calls are growing inside Israel, led by survivors and victims’ families, for the Israeli government to provide a factual explanation of precisely how their loved ones died: Were they killed by Palestinian militants or by the Israeli military?

Israeli media outlets have aired interviews with survivors and IDF personnel describing what they refer to as “friendly fire” incidents, including the shelling of a house where Hamas commandos were holding Israeli civilians hostage. Families of some Israelis killed at Kibbutz Be’eri have cited witnesses who said that an Israeli tank fired on a house filled with Israeli civilians held hostage on October 7. A dozen hostages, including 12-year-old twins, died inside the house after Israeli forces began shelling it.

“According to the evidence, the shooting of the tank was fatal and killed many hostages in addition to the terrorists,” the families wrote in a January 4 letter to the IDF’s chief of staff. Given the “seriousness of the incident, we do not think it is right to wait with the investigation until after the end of the war.” They demanded a “comprehensive and transparent investigation into the decisions and actions that led to this tragic outcome.” Israeli military Brig. Gen. Barak Hiram has since admitted he ordered the shelling that day. “The negotiations are over,” he recalled saying. “Break in, even at the cost of civilian casualties.”

Yasmin Porat, who had escaped the horrors at the Nova music festival and sought refuge in a home at Be’eri, offered extensive details on this incident, as Electronic Intifada reported. In a series of interviews on Israeli media, Porat described how Palestinian commandos entered the home and told the Israeli civilians they intended to take them hostage and, after moving them to a location with other hostages at the kibbutz, ultimately used their Israeli captives to contact the police to negotiate. “Their objective was to kidnap us to Gaza. Not to murder us,” she told Israeli network Kan News. “And after we were there for two hours with the abductors, the police arrive. A gun battle takes place that our police started.”

Porat, who said her captors “treated us very humanely,” described how she managed to escape the house by convincing one of the gunmen to exit with her. After using her as a “human shield” to exit the house, the Palestinian was taken into custody, and Porat remained on the scene as Israeli forces laid siege to the house. “They eliminated everyone, including the hostages. There was very, very heavy crossfire,” she said. “Everyone was killed there. Just horrible.”

Other witnesses at Be’eri have described how Israeli forces were able to retake the kibbutz from Palestinian fighters only after the IDF shelled houses where hostages were being held.

There is also evidence indicating that Israeli forces responding to the attacks at the Nova music festival, where 364 people died, may have killed Israeli civilians as they attacked Palestinian militants, including with munitions fired from Apache helicopters. Yedioth Ahronoth and other major Israeli media outlets have published reports detailing the massive fire from combat helicopters and drones unleashed against the gunmen who violently stormed the festival. Military sources described the difficulty in distinguishing civilians from attackers, particularly in the early phases of the Israeli counterstrike.

In the most sweeping journalistic account to date of the events surrounding the Israeli military’s operations on October 7, Ronen Bergman and Yoav Zitun — two well-connected and prominent Israeli journalists —wrote about the state of chaos and panic within the security establishment. They described “a command chain that failed almost entirely and was entirely blindsided; orders to open fire on terrorist vehicles speeding towards Gaza even as there was a concern that they contained captives — some sort of renewed version of the Hannibal Directive.”

The Hannibal Directive, which dates back to 1986 and has been the subject of great controversy in Israel, authorized military forces to stop the kidnapping of Israeli soldiers at all costs, even if it meant shooting or injuring the captives. In a 2003 investigation, the Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported the broadly held understanding of the directive: “From the point of view of the army, a dead soldier is better than a captive soldier who himself suffers and forces the state to release thousands of captives in order to obtain his release.”

The Hannibal Directive was allegedly rescinded in 2016. But Bergman and Zitun report that by midday on October 7, the IDF issued a similar order, instructing all units to stop Hamas from bringing hostages back to Gaza and to do so “at any cost.” They describe Israeli helicopter gunships, drones, and tanks firing on any and all cars en route to Gaza, burning them and in some cases killing everyone inside the vehicles. Haaretz reported on an IDF commander, locked in a subterranean bunker, calling in a strike against his own bases “in order to repulse the terrorists.”

The truth is that we do not know how many of their own people Israeli forces killed during the counteroffensive on October 7. Nor do we know what happened in the firefights when armed Israelis, including kibbutz private security and military personnel, sought to defend their settlements.

“How Many Terrorist Isra-hellis — Soldiers And Civilians — Were Killed In The Chaos And Had Their Deaths Recorded As Killed OR Sadistically Burned Alive By Hamas?”

Beyond the deadly shelling of the house at Be’eri, the public has been given very few details of what exactly transpired when official Israeli military forces deployed to confront the commandos from Gaza. Israeli military and police forces engaged in prolonged standoffs and shootouts with Palestinian gunmen holed up in houses, police stations, military installations, and other buildings, often holding hostages. In some cases, these battles went on for days.

In November, Netanyahu senior adviser Mark Regev was asked by MSNBC host Mehdi Hasan about some of the lies told by Israeli officials and soldiers about the events of October 7. Regev remarked that when a claim has been proven false, Israel retracts or clarifies it. “We originally said, in the atrocious Hamas attack upon our people on October 7, we had the number at 1,400 casualties and now we’ve revised that down to 1,200 because we understood that we’d overestimated, we made a mistake,” Regev said. He then added: “There were actually bodies that were so badly burnt we thought they were ours; in the end, apparently they were Hamas terrorists.”

Israel’s social security agency has stated that the death toll from October 7 is 1,139 people. It has identified 695 Israeli civilians killed that day, along with 71 foreigners, most of whom were migrant laborers. Some 373 members of Israeli military and security forces were reported dead.

Israel has estimated that between 1,000 and 1,500 Palestinian fighters were killed that day, many of them during assaults launched with advanced weapons fired from tanks, helicopters, and drones. How many Israelis — soldiers and civilians — were killed in the chaos and had their deaths recorded as killed or sadistically burned alive by Hamas? How many Israeli lives were sacrificed under Hannibal-style orders to prevent them from being taken hostage at all costs?

The answers to these questions will bring no absolution to those who initiated the carnage on October 7. No civilians would have died in those Israeli communities had Hamas not launched its operations. It is also true that if Israel had not engaged in a 75-year campaign of ethnic cleansing and apartheid, there would not have been an October 7. The illusion promoted by the Israeli state that its people could live a bucolic life in the “Gaza envelope” while their government enforced the caging and repression of 2.3 million Palestinians next door was shattered.

The families of the dead deserve to have answers. The specifics of what happened that day also matter because of how these events have shaped the public attitude toward Israel’s war, with its horrifying death toll, particularly among Palestinian children.

Many Palestinian families take refuge under harsh conditions at a school affiliated with the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees, or UNRWA, in the Daraj neighborhood as the Israeli attacks continue in Gaza City, Gaza, on Feb. 6, 2024. Photo: Dawoud Abo Alkas/Anadolu via Getty Images

Faulty Justifications

Cynical manipulation of the truth has been a hallmark of Netanyahu’s career. He has long advocated for Hamas to achieve and maintain power in Gaza precisely because he believed it was the single best path to achieving his own colonial agenda.

“Anyone who wants to thwart the establishment of a Palestinian state has to support bolstering Hamas and transferring money to Hamas,” Netanyahu told his Likud confederates in 2019. The logic was clear: The world will never give the Palestinians a state while Hamas remains in power. That’s why, since at least 2012, Netanyahu has facilitated the continued flow of money to Hamas.

By January 18, with the horrors in Gaza intensifying, U.S. and European diplomats were telling anyone who would listen that they were deep into planning for a “day after” scenario that would pave the way for a two-state solution. Netanyahu responded to this chatter by giving a televised speech in Hebrew. “I clarify that in any arrangement in the foreseeable future, with an accord or without an accord, Israel must have security control over the entire territory west of the Jordan River,” Netanyahu said. “That’s a necessary condition. It clashes with the principle of sovereignty but what can you do?”

While it was reported as a defiant rebuke of his U.S. and European allies, there was nothing new in Netanyahu’s position. It has been the Likud party’s official stance since its 1977 charter. “Between the Sea and the Jordan there will only be Israeli sovereignty,” the document reads. “A plan which relinquishes parts of western Eretz Israel, undermines our right to the country, unavoidably leads to the establishment of a ‘Palestinian State,’ jeopardizes the security of the Jewish population, endangers the existence of the State of Israel, and frustrates any prospect of peace.”

“The Hospitals Are Hamas, The U.N. Is Hamas, Journalists Are Hamas, European Allies Are Hamas, The International Court of Justice Is Antisemitic.”

The lies that were spread in the immediate aftermath of the October 7 attacks did not end there. Nearly every week, sometimes every day, the Israeli government and military have unloaded a fresh barrage of allegations intended to justify the ongoing slaughter. The hospitals are Hamas, the U.N. is Hamas, journalists are Hamas, European allies are Hamas, the International Court of Justice is antisemitic. The tactic is effective, particularly because the U.S. and other major allies have consistently laundered Israel’s unverified allegations as evidence of the righteousness of the cause.

Israel Defense Forces spokesperson Daniel Hagari, pictured in northern Gaza on Dec. 15, 2023, is a daily fixture in Israel’s propaganda campaign. Photo: Amir Levy/Getty Images

The latest example is Israel’s campaign to destroy UNRWA, the single most important humanitarian organization in Gaza, which was established in 1949 specifically to protect Palestinians violently expelled from their homes and land by the creation of the Israeli state. Almost immediately after the ICJ ruled against Israel in the genocide case brought by South Africa in The Hague, Israel accused 12 of the organization’s 30,000 employees of participating in the October 7 attacks.

Israel then presented the U.S. and other governments with “intelligence” it claimed to have obtained from the interrogations of Palestinian captives, documents recovered from the bodies of dead Palestinians, seized cellphones, and signals intercepts. Israel charged that 10 percent of UNRWA’s 12,000-person local staff in Gaza had some form of “links” to Hamas. “The institution as a whole is a haven for Hamas’ radical ideology,” an anonymous senior Israeli official told the Wall Street Journal in a widely cited article penned by a former IDF soldier.

The innuendo-laced allegation of UNRWA staff having undefined “links” to Hamas and Islamic Jihad, or “close relatives” who belong to the groups is a risible charge given that Hamas is not just an armed militia, but also the governing civil authority in Gaza.

The U.S. responded to Israel’s allegations by immediately announcing it was suspending all funding to UNRWA. “We haven’t had the ability to investigate [the allegations] ourselves,” Blinken admitted on January 30. Nonetheless, he declared: “They are highly, highly credible.”

But journalists from Sky News reviewed the so-called dossier and reported, “The Israeli intelligence documents make several claims that Sky News has not seen proof of and many of the claims, even if true, do not directly implicate UNRWA.” Britain’s Channel 4 also obtained the document and determined it “provides no evidence to support its explosive new claim that UNRWA staff were involved with terror attacks on Israel.” The Financial Times, which also reviewed the materials, reported there were specific allegations of direct participation in the October 7 attacks against four Palestinians employed by UNRWA, not 12 as originally asserted.

This was a transparent attempt by Israel to distract from the rulings in the ICJ genocide case and to obliterate a U.N. agency that Israel has long viewed as an impediment to its goal of denying Palestinians the right to return to the homes and territory from which Israel expelled them. It was also an action that explicitly violated the orders issued by the world court, which directed Israel to “take immediate and effective measures to enable the provision of urgently needed basic services and humanitarian assistance.” Based on Israel’s sweeping and unverified allegations alone, the U.S. led scores of Western nations to denounce the U.N. agency and pull their funding at the moment it is needed most.

From weapons and intelligence to political, diplomatic, and legal support, Israel has wanted for nothing from the Biden administration. The mounting pile of Palestinian civilian corpses and their surviving family members, meanwhile, are relegated to the workshopped afterthoughts uttered by Western politicians who have been told they should occasionally squeeze a line or two into their speeches about death and suffering in Gaza.

Propaganda and weaponized lies can only obscure the dead bodies, the forced starvation, the mass killing of children, and the utter destruction of an entire society for so long. Over time, it becomes increasingly difficult to conceal the nexus between the actions taken by Israel after October 7, the mendacious narratives it deployed, and Netanyahu’s desperate struggle to retain political power and his personal liberty. The 1,200 Israeli and international victims of October 7, and the more than 27,000 Palestinians whose deaths were justified in their names, deserve an unvarnished rendering of the truth.

[girlschasinggirls]

I’ve searched a bit around for photo/video evidence of everything people claim happened on oct 07, but haven’t really found anything either. There was this one video that showed I think three people on the ground. I’d assume they were dead, but they were definitely not mutilated or beheaded to say the least. And then there’s that video of the german woman and the other young woman (who was disheveled but not seeming too harmed, luckily) that was being pulled out of a pick up truck.

Several people who were on the festival that day have recounted that the idf were shooting indiscriminately at houses/cars/civilians, and even Israeli soldiers have confirmed this and said they received such orders in order to kill hamas soldiers who hid in the masses, with no regards to civilian deaths (sourced from various israeli news sites).

Like obviously some horrible shit happened, but also it is fairly obvious that idf was behind a lot of the civilian/hostage deaths (I’m not going to speculate a percentage or anything of that kind), and there’s not a lot of, if any, footage to back up their claims in regards to what hamas did and didn’t do that day. I’ve seen videos of palestinian mass graves featuring dozens of bodies. I have not seen anything of that like from oct 07, and I am honestly wondering how 1400 people could die in one day without any trace.

But I definitely think that the most obvious sign that they don’t have any solid proof is that the idf/israel keeps posting videos or pictures of fabricated crime scenes that hamas supposedly is behind (posts that literal criminologists point out are staged). If there was any proof, there is absolutely no doubt in my mind that israel and their supporters would spread it to every corner of the internet. The israeli government have shown time and time again that they are not above propaganda and advertising their genocide

so true. i dont doubt they set fire to houses and cars with people still alive in them which is not just murder but also torture which is definitely the worst things they did that i’ve seen.

if they beheaded people they would need a pretty large knife, machete, sword or axe which i’ve been trying to spot in their videos but all i see is guns and rocket launchers. and i’ve also seen people from the festival say a lot of people died in crossfire after the iof arrived. there was an interview of someone that said they were at the festival and hid in a dumpster with some other people and hamas came and shot everyone and just he survived - and i have seen a video of people hiding in a dumpster but they were all alive. and the video of the german lady (she looked already dead to me) and the other woman being put in the car - she has a patch of blood and dirt on her butt which some people have claimed it means she was ‘obviously raped’ but it looks like it’s from sitting in blood the way it’s spread out (not saying she definitely wasn’t raped either it’s just not proof that she was - it’s proof that she sat in blood)

people keep saying ‘i saw this’ and ‘i’ve seen the video of this’ or that hamas filmed things themselves and uploaded them but don’t actually show the video itself. the only videos i’ve seen from hamas cameras are people still alive they aren’t touching and one of a hamas member getting killed and it’s just his pov of the ground and you can hear him gurgling. and also one of them raiding a military base and trashing it and some dead soldiers.

when i first saw the death toll for the attack i assumed most were from the indiscriminate rocket fire to confuse and overwhelm the iron dome and iof since i don’t think it would be easy to kill such a large amount of people in a few hours one house at a time? & israeli survivors and hostages have both said the police and iof didn’t show up to help them in kibbutz for hours like why would they do that besides to let people die to justify flattening gaza.

i really don’t want to be insensitive about it but i really need proof, muslims around the world are getting stabbed to death because of careless reporters spreading this without having evidence

[sylvielauffeydottir]

Hello, it is I, your friendly neighborhood historian. I am ready to lose followers for this post, but I have two masters degrees in history and one of my focuses has been middle eastern area studies. Furthermore, I’ve been tired of watching the world be reduced to pithy little infographics, and I believe there is no point to my education if I don’t put it to good use. Finally, I am ethnically Asheknazi Jewish. This does not color my opinion in this post — I am in support of either a one or two state solution for Israel and Palestine, depending on the factors determined by the Palestinian Authority, and the Israeli Government does not speak for me. I hate Netanyahu. A lot. With that said, my family was slaughtered at Auschwitz-Birkenau. I have stood in front of that memorial wall at the Holocaust memorial in DC for my great uncle Simon and my great uncle Louis and cried as I lit a candle. Louis was a rabbi, and he preached mitzvot and tolerance. He died anyway. 

There’s a great many things I want to say about what is happening in the Middle East right now, but let’s start with some facts. 

In early May, there were talks of a coalition government that might have put together (among other parties, the Knesset is absolutely gigantic and usually has about 11-13 political parties at once) the Yesh Atid, a center-left party, and the United Arab List, a Palestinian party. For the first time, Palestinians would have been members of the Israeli government in their own right. And what happened, all of the sudden? A war broke out. A war that, amazingly, seemed to shield Benjamin Netanyahu from criminal prosecution, despite the fact that he has been under investigation for corruption for some time now and the only thing that is stopping a real investigation is the fact that he is Prime Minister.

Funny how that happened. 

There’s a second thing people ought to know, and it is about Hamas. I’ve found it really disturbing to see people defending Hamas on a world stage because, whether or not people want to believe it, Hamas is a terrorist organization. I’m sorry, but it is. Those are the facts. I’m not being a right wing extremist or even a Republican or whatever else or want to lob at me here. I’m a liberal historian with some facts. They are a terrorist organization, and they don’t care if their people die. 

Here’s what you need to know: 

There are two governments for the occupied Palestinian territories in the West Bank and Gaza. In April 2021, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas postponed planned elections. He said it was because of a dispute amid Israeli-annexed East Jerusalum. He is 85 years old, and his Fatah Party is losing power to Hamas. Everyone knows that. Palestinians know that. 

Here’s the thing about Hamas: they might be terrorists, but aren’t idiots. They understand that they have a frustrated population filled with people who have been brutalized by their neighbors. And they also understand that Israel has something called the iron dome defense system, which means that if you throw a rocket at it, it probably won’t kill anyone (though there have been people in Israel who died, including Holocaust survivors). Israel will, however, retaliate, and when they do, they will kill Palestinian civilians. On a world stage, this looks horrible. The death toll, because Palestinians don’t have the same defense system, is always skewed. Should the Israeli government do that? No. It’s morally repugnant. It’s wrong. It’s unfair. It’s hurting people without the capability to defend themselves. But is Hamas counting on them to for the propaganda? Yeah. Absolutely. They’re literally willing to kill their other people for it.

You know why this works for Hamas? They know that Israel will respond anyway, despite the moral concerns. And if you’re curious why, you can read some books on the matter (Six Days of War by Michael Oren; The Yom Kippur War by Abraham Rabinovich; Rise and Kill First by Ronen Bergmen; Antisemitism by Deborah Lipstadt; and Israel: A Concise History of a Nation Reborn by Daniel Gordis). The TL;DR, if you aren’t interested in homework, is that Israel believes they have no choice but to defend themselves against what they consider ‘hostile powers.’ And it’s almost entirely to do with the Holocaust. It’s a little David v Goliath. It is, dare I say, complicated.

I’m barely scratching the surface here. 

(We won’t get into this in this post, though if you want to DM me for details, it might be worth knowing that Iran funds Hamas and basically supplies them with all of their weapons, and part of the reason the United States has been so reluctant to engage with this conflict is that Iran is currently in Vienna trying to restore its nuclear deal with western powers. The USA cannot afford to piss off Iran right now, and therefore cannot afford to aggravative Hamas and also needs to rely on Israel to destroy Irani nuclear facilities if the deal goes south. So, you know, there is that).

There are some people who will tell you that criticism of the Israel government is antisemitic. They are almost entirely members of the right wing, evangelical community, and they don’t speak for the Jewish community. The majority of Jewish people and Jewish Americans in particular are criticizing the Israeli government right now. The majority of Jewish people in the diaspora and in Israel support Palestinian rights and are speaking out about it. And actually, when they talk about it, they are putting themselves in great danger to do so. Because it really isn’t safe to be visibly Jewish right now. People may not want to listen to Jews when they speak about antisemitism or may want to believe that antisemitism ‘isn’t real’ because ‘the Holocaust is over’ but that is absolutely untrue. In 2019, antisemitic hate crimes in the United States reached a high we have never seen before. I remember that, because I was living in London, and I was super scared for my family at the time. Since then, that number has increased by nearly 400% in the last ten days. If you don’t believe me, have some articles about it (one, two, three, four, and five, to name a few). 

I live in New York City, where a man was beaten in Time Square while attending a Free Palestine rally and wearing a kippah. I’m sorry, but being visibly Jewish near a pro-Palestine rally? That was enough to have a bunch of people just start beating on him? I made a previous post detailing how there are Jews being attacked all over the world, and there is a very good timeline of recent hate crimes against Jews that you can find right here. These are Jews, by the way, who have nothing to do with Israel or Palestine. They are Americans or Europeans or Canadians who are living their lives. In some cases, they are at pro-Palestine rallies and they are trying to help, but they just look visibly Jewish.  God Forbid we are the wrong ethnicity for your rally, even if we agree.

This is really serious. There are people calling for the death of all Jews. There are people calling for another Holocaust. 

There are 14 million Jews in the world. 14 million. Of 7.6 billion. And you think it isn’t a problem the way people treat us?

Anyway (aside from, you know, compassion), why does this matter? This matters because stuff like this deters Jews who want to be part of the pro-Palestine movement because they are literally scared for their safety. I said this before, and I will say it again: Zionism was, historically speaking, a very unpopular opinion. It was only widespread antisemitic violence (you know, the Holocaust) that made Jews believe there was a necessity for a Jewish state. Honestly, it wasn’t until the Pittsburgh synagogue shooting that I supported it the abstract idea too.

I grew up in New York City, I am a liberal Jew, and I believe in the rights of marginalized and oppressed people to self-determine worldwide. Growing up, I also fit the profile of what many scholars describe as the self hating Jew, because I believed that, in order to justify myself in American liberal society, I had to hate Israel, and I had to be anti-Zionist by default, even if I didn’t always understand what ‘Zionism’ meant in abstract. Well, I am 27 years old now with two masters degrees in history, and here is what Zionism means to me: I hate the Israeli government. They do not speak for me. But I am not anti-Zionist. I believe in the necessity for a Jewish state — a state where all Jews are welcome, regardless of their background, regardless of their nationality. 

There needs to be a place where Jews, an ethnic minority who are unwelcome in nearly every state in the world, have a place where they are free from persecution — a place where they feel protected. And I don’t think there is anything wrong with that place being the place where Jews are ethnically indigenous to. Because believe it or not, whether it is inconvenient, Jews are indigenous to the land of Israel. I’ve addressed this in this post.

With that said, that doesn’t mean you can kick the Palestinian people out. They are also indigenous to that land, which is addressed in the same post, if you don’t trust me. 

What is incredible to me is that Zionism is defined, by the Oxford English Dixtionary, as “A movement [that called originally for] the reestablishment of a Jewish nationhood in Palestine, and [since 1948] the development of the State of Israel.” Whether we agree with this or not, there were early disagreements about the location of a ‘Jewish state,’ and some, like Maurice de Hirsch, believed it ought to be located in South America, for example. Others believed it should be located in Africa. The point is that the original plans for the Jewish state were about safety. The plan changed because Jews wanted to return to their homeland, the largest project of decolonization and indigenous reclamation ever to be undertaken by an indigenous group. Whether you want to hear that or not, it is true. Read a book or two. Then you might know what I mean.

When people say this is a complicated issue, they aren’t being facetious. They aren’t trying to obfuscate the point. They often aren’t even trying to defend the Israeli government, because I certainly am not — I think they are abhorrent. But there is no future in the Middle East if the Israelis and Palestinians don’t form a state that has an equal right of return and recognizes both of their indigenousness, and that will never happen if people can’t stop throwing vitriolic rhetoric around.  Is the Israeli Government bad? Yes. Are Israeli citizens bad? Largely, no. They want to defend their families, and they want to defend their people. This is basically the same as the fact that Palestinian people aren’t bad, though Hamas often is. And for the love of god, stop defending terrorist organizations. Just stop. They kill their own people for their own power and for their own benefit. 

And yes, one more time, the Israeli government is so, so, so wrong. But god, think about your words, and think about how you are enabling Nazis. The rhetoric the left is using is hurting Jews. I am afraid to leave my house. I’m afraid to identify as Jewish on tumblr. I’m afraid for my family, afraid for my friends. People I know are afraid for me. 

It’s 2021. I am not my great uncle. I cried for him, but I shouldn’t have to die like him. 

Words have consequences. Language has consequences. And genuinely, I do not think everyone is a bad person, so think about what you are putting into the world, because you’d be surprised how often you are doing a Nazi a favor or two. 

Is that really what you want? To do a Nazi a favor or two? I don’t think that you do. I hope you don’t, at least.

That’s all. You know, five thousand words later. But uh, think a little. Please. 

[palestinianliberator]

To be Palestinian is exhausting

You will not find a single Palestinian who hasn’t had to endure all of the following and more:

Constantly having to prove our existence

[This is going to be a tremendously long post, but I implore you to read through what you can]

Constantly having to educate everyone around us on our history and people while we continue to be slaughtered

Constantly having to combat Israeli propaganda and dehumanization campaigns against us

Constantly having to combat liberal propaganda from those who simply cannot understand the pain and damage they are doing

Constantly having to defend ourselves from the overwhelming forces that stand in our way, from the Israeli forces to the global institutions that help support it to the structures in the US that mean that any Palestinian who dares speak out risk both their lives and livelihood

Constantly in fear of whether or not you’ll end up on another “list” as a result of daring to speak out

Constantly having to do it all again as soon as we’re back on the news

Constantly having to answer for all other Palestinians in a way that nobody else is expected to

Constantly being seen as the “crazy one” when trying to share your narrative, having to defend against an endless barrage of accusations of antisemitism

Constantly being put into situations by bad-faith actors who attempt to engage in “debate” or “discussion” or “dialogue” with talking points that demean and duhamanize you, all while being expected to maintain a smile and cool composure while someone literally debates to your face your own existence or how “actually it’s YOUR people’s fault you’re being slaughtered! Israel isn’t the bad guy here!”

Constantly being forced to choose between engaging in bad-faith debates framed in a way to make you look like the unreasonable bad guy while the person implicitly defending your ethnic cleansing is made to look like the “rational good guy” or looking after your own mental health, knowing that even refusing these “invitations” is itself a mark against you and your people

Constantly being told that you’re too “biased”, too “close”, too “emotional” about the literal slaughter of your people to be seen as a valid source, while Israelis and complete outsiders are given all the space they want to speak for us endlessly

Constantly seeing people being actively mislead and wondering if you have the capacity to reach out to them and attempt to share your narrative with them, knowing that if you don’t, they’re going to go on to propagate the same lies justifying your ethnic cleansing

Constantly having to combat GENUINE censorship throughout the media, social media, and society itself. It’s a fact proven by former Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and Youtube employees that Palestinian voices have their reach censored in a way no one else does, which is why it’s so important to amplify and actively share Palestinian voices rather than just liking or indicating support

Constantly being told you don’t know your own history by people who’ve educated themselves on Youtube and Wikipedia despite having lived the reality yourself and dedicating your entire life to studying every single aspect of it

Constantly seeing those who have the courage to stand alongside you being shut down with accusations of antisemitism and seeing them lose their courage to stand by you out of fear of their own image and livelihood and having to rush to their defense as well

Constantly having to see photos of your people, sometimes even people you know, maimed, injured, murdered, or burned to ash by Israeli aggression but knowing you have a duty to share what’s happening and must stomach the images to show the world the true extent of the suffering we endure

Constantly having to worry not just for your own safety, but the safety of your family and loved ones who can be punished or targeted because of things you yourself say

Constantly wondering who you can actually trust, from new friends and acquaintances to professors to even other Palestinians because we’ve been so heavily infiltrated by Israeli intelligence looking to blackmail Palestinians using anything from their sexual orientation or even made up “evidence” meant to ruin their lives

Constantly having your heart sink every notification you get wondering if it’s news that a loved one has been killed

Constantly seeing the corpses of loved ones shared on social media and reliving the trauma all over again, yet again knowing that you WANT the world to see what’s happening

Constantly seeing the effects this has on your own family and feeling helpless to do anything

Constantly on alert for the FBI at your door as they often “visit” Palestinians who dare speak out, myself included on numerous occasions 

Constantly wondering if your advocacy for your people is going to result in the loss of your job, scholarship, license

Constantly being asked to “humanize” and “feel for” those who live their lives day in day out completely unfazed by your suffering despite living in a society that couldn’t even FUNCTION without our subjugation

Constantly being told “don’t blame regular Israelis, blame the government!!” as if the state itself wasn’t founded on our ethnic cleansing, as if it isn’t “normal Israelis” who make up the entirety of the Israeli Military and have actively brutalized you and your people

Seeing allies you fought for suddenly SILENT when it’s their time to speak up

Studying on a US campus where those SAME SOLDIERS WHO ENGAGED IN YOUR PERSECUTION AND ACTIVELY SERVED AS THE ENFORCERS OF YOUR OCCUPATION then re-enact the trauma against you and you’re meant to simply ignore the fact that THEY ARE THE SAME PEOPLE WHO MURDERED YOUR FRIENDS AND FAMILY, and not being allowed to even be ANGRY at that

Trying to navigate this half-life in the diaspora where it’s a struggle to connect with other Palestinians given the distance between us and yet not being able to connect with anyone around because, again, they simply can’t understand

Constantly being expected to simply give up your time to those who demand you answer them and debate your existence and narrative with them, who them take you blocking them for your own mental health as a “victory” to be lorded over you when you simply can’t take it anymore

Constantly having to EXPLAIN all of this because nobody but other Palestinians can truly understand just how pervasive, overwhelming, and incapacitating this unique form of exhaustion is

Constantly seeing your erasure and ethnic cleansing defended all over the media, all over social media, throughout your academic career, while those ENGAGED in your ethnic cleansing have the audacity to claim that the media is biased against THEM

Constantly on guard with everything you say and write, knowing that unlike those promoting our ethnic cleansing, we don’t have the luxury of making mistakes or getting lazy in our writing and advocacy. One mistaken source, mistaken information, being imperfect is enough to discredit your voice entirely

The crippling obligation you have to share the narrative of your people, knowing that so many people will view you as the spokesperson of your entire people, knowing how unfair it is, but also knowing that if you DON’T speak out, nobody will on your behalf, and even the most well-intentioned, involved allies can simply never understand how it all truly feels

Seeing the entire world stand by and do absolutely nothing while your people are slaughtered time and time again

Seeing your history misconstrued by people implicitly defending your ethnic cleansing and settler-colonialism

Knowing that our parents have been through this and more, seeing them have to go through this yet again while still being forced to go about their daily lives and given no time to mourn or recover

Not being able to even share our culture without being attacked for it

Knowing that so many of your friends and family won’t ever be able to return to their homeland while foreigners from around the globe are flown into Israel free because it’s their “birthright”

A “birthright” denied to even my own parents, born in Jerusalem yet unable to enter it

Having even self-proclaimed “allies” question Palestinian resistance, policing our tone, never /really/ understanding our pain and anger and how they themselves contribute to it

Screaming from the moment you can about what’s happening to us, desperately trying to get people to CARE, and having it often fall on deaf ears

Knowing that if you’re not the source of information for those genuinely seeking to learn, they may find themselves mislead by sources that claim to be fair and balanced while imprinting subtle lies about Palestine and Palestinians on those they engage with

Not even being able to find the energy and ability to respond to genuine messages of love and support, which are greatly appreciated, and feeling bad about it because you don’t want to seem like you’re not genuinely happy to hear it

Feeling a sense of overwhelming exhaustion in times like this while at the same time being unable to sleep

Seeing the effect all of this has had on your people, knowing your people have among the highest rates of depression on the planet and yet we’re all suffering together with no way to ease the pain

Being constantly exposed to the ways in which your people are erased and questioning if you have the energy or sanity left to deconstruct such aggression to help outsiders understand the severity of it all

Seeing allies suddenly call for “peace” when Palestinians are finally fed up enough to rise up and fight back against an overwhelming military force

I could go on, but in case you it’s not already clear, I’m tired and exhausted

Always wondering if any of this is even worth it when the world has ignored your slaughter and ethnic cleansing for nearly 8 decades, knowing that nobody is about to step in to help now.

Constantly wondering if any of this is even worth it, and then feeling inspired by fellow Palestinians, our resilience, the fact that despite ALL of this and more, we continue to fight.

Despite all of this, I would never even consider or entertain the thought of being born as anything other than Palestinian

[stephenjaymorrisblog]

From The Warsaw Ghetto- To The Gaza Strip

(Palestinians versus Israel)

By Stephen Jay Morris

May 14, 2021

©Scientific Morality

The bifurcation of metaphysical morality boils down to good and evil.  This is intended for the simple minded who can’t comprehend the complexities of political science.  In the Old Testament, King Solomon is a hero. Two women come to him, each claiming a newborn baby is theirs. King Solomon took a sword and threatened to split the baby in two so as to equally award half of the child to each alleged mother. One of the women, intent on saving her child’s life, surrendered the baby to the other.  Thus, the real mother was revealed and King Solomon awarded the child to her.

We could use that ancient Solomonic wisdom in the Mideast right now!   The only people who give a damn about the plight of the Palestinian people are the international Left, while the supporters of Israel are American Imperialists, “End of Days” Evangelical Christians, and a handful of Conservative American Jews and Orthodox Jews.  Most Jews in the USA are Reformed Jews and Secular Jews.  American Jews consider themselves, simply, American and many marry outside of their religion.  American Secular Jews have no Jewish identity, which satisfies a lot politically conservative Jews.  This is a curious contradiction.

I always thought that Judeo morality was absolute.  How can you have one foot in Israel and another in America?  Is America the greatest country in the world, or is Israel?  Religious dogma dictates that you cannot serve two masters.  Can the Rabbis in a Yeshiva solve this dilemma?  Rabbis arguing about text in the Torah is how Polemics got started.

There is this notion that Jews are all monolithic and all the same.  The revisionist Zionists infer that they speak for the Jewish people.  They don’t!  They tell non-Jewish Right wingers that Anti-Zionism is the same as Anti-Antisemitism.  WRONG!!!!!  Take the case of the ultra Orthodox Jewish sect, Neturei - Karta.  They believe that the Jewish nation of Israel violates Jewish Law and Prophecy.  This sect is against Israel.  What do the rest of the Zionists think of this sect?  They don’t.  They simply ignore it. Are these Jews are self-hating?  Are they Uncle Jake's?  What is an Uncle Jake?  A Jewish version of an Uncle Tom.

Then there is the Jewish Left, and the secular Jewish Left. These secular Jews would never disclose that they are Jewish.  I knew a guy for years who never told me he was Jewish.  Then there are the Jewish Left groups like Hashomer Hatzair, or even the former political party in Israel, the Labor Party.  The Jewish Left in Israel has been suppressed.  They have been taken over by the Likud Party and a coalition of Jewish religious Right groups.  They are financed by Right wing Christians in the USA.  If you’d like to learn about the history of the Jewish Left, click here: The first Zionists were socialists > Sapardanis Kostas

The same problem exists with the Palestinians.  The first group that represented them was the The PLO – Palestinian Liberation Organization, who were Marxist revolutionaries.  Following them, the Islamic religious Right took over.  That was Hamas.  What kills me about Right wing propaganda is how they like to mislabel their enemies; ie: “Islamic Fascists are Leftists.” Holy shit turds!  Leftists? They are absolutely not!

So, what would be a Solomonic solution be to all this? The Palestinians should kick Hamas out and create a secular Leftist revolutionary group.  The Left wing Israelis should destroy the Jewish Right and have a peace treaty and planning conference with Palestinians.  Other then this, I agree with my Anarchist comrades: Have a “No State Solution.”  Fuck it, man!  As a Jew, I can say this shit.

Addendum: Today is May 17, 2021. Israel is bombing the Gaza Strip. It is said that the first casualty of war is the truth. I say the first fatalities of war are women and children.  What is happening in Israel now reminds me of the Vietnam War during the late 60’s and early 70’s.   Innocent women and children, along with elderly Vietnamese, were bombed by the American Air Force, while U.S. ground troops burned down their straw huts.  The women and children were always accused of being in cahoots with the Vietcong, the communist guerrillas of the jungle.

The same lie that I heard back then is now coming from the Right wing government of Israel.  They say that the Islamic guerrilla group, Hamas, is using innocent civilians for human shields.  So the Palestinian women and children have to be sacrificed in order to protect Israel? Excuse me?  Protect? What’s the matter—are Israel’s nuclear bombs at the bomb clinic undergoing repairs?  Maybe the Iron Dome is out of order?  Hamas versus nuclear Israel is, by no measure, a fair match.  When the Polish Jews rose up in World War II, they were in the same position, fighting the invading Nazi army in the Warsaw Ghetto.  Just like the Gaza Strip, no one could leave or enter the occupied city.  Of course, the Nazis called the Jewish resistance, “Terrorists.”

I think Benjamin Netanyahu should be charged with war crimes.  I also think that the Likud Party should be outlawed.  I don’t care if 71% of the Israeli voting population supports Donald Trump.  Shame on all you people! I realize that the Israeli Left is outnumbered, however, if you were true to your convictions, you would protest your government.  The mainstream media will not cover your protest, but social media will.  

All my life, the subject of Israel would come and go. I remember the Six Day War in Israel, back in 1967.  At my junior high school, I saw a Jewish and a Black student debating. The Black Civil Rights movement was supporting the Palestinians at the time.  The Jewish kid wore a Yarmulke, so he was a target of hostilities towards Israel.

When I was 13 years old, I didn’t know better and I supported Israel.   I am older now, so—no dice!  Just because I am Jewish, it doesn’t mean that I am obligated to be a supporter, especially when the Israeli government is corrupt.  This war is morally wrong and should be stopped!

[newstfionline]

Nearing 100 days in office, Macron starts showing his true ambitions

By James McAuley, Washington Post, July 30, 2017

PARIS--Emmanuel Macron is a master of persuasion.

In his youth, he seduced his married high school drama teacher, the woman who is now his wife. In middle age--with no government experience--he cajoled a sitting president into giving him a coveted cabinet position. Then--with no support from any established political party--he dazzled a nation, becoming, at 39, the youngest-ever president of France, a country where tradition is a way of life.

Nearly 100 days into Macron’s presidency, there are already indications that the French are increasingly skeptical of their new president. While a majority still approve of him, Macron’s initially sky-high approval rating dropped by 10 percent this month, mostly because of his refusal to back down on commitments to slash government spending. He has also come under fire for failing to aid migrants, sparred with France’s chief military officer, who later resigned, and pushed to expand the state’s powers to fight terrorism in ways that critics fear will permanently curtail civil liberties.

Judging from the new president’s calendar, however, the dip in domestic popularity is of little concern, for his roving political eye seems to have identified a new conquest. Macron may be the president of France, but now he seems to be running for a different office altogether: the leader of the free world.

Following the election of Donald Trump--who ran on promises of “America First” isolationism--commentators worldwide immediately began referring to German Chancellor Angela Merkel as the de facto defender of the liberal world order. With her famously stoic demeanor, Merkel appeared the natural replacement. Throughout her long career, she has advocated diplomacy and international law, and has defended an embattled European Union.

But in his first three months in office, Macron has dared to tread where Merkel hesitates to go. In keeping with his youthful image, he makes bold statements in defense of global causes such as climate change action, as evidenced in his Twitter campaign to “Make Our Planet Great Again.” And in the style of the “French Obama,” he hosts international celebrities in the Élysée for “conversations” on hot-button issues--including both Bono and Rhianna this week.

In any case, the major plot points of his young presidency have all featured him in the international spotlight, either attempting to charm or stand up to powerful world leaders, often those unpopular in France.

This is not to say that nothing has happened on the domestic level since his election in May. Macron, a relative political outsider even a year ago, may ultimately succeed in carrying out an almost unthinkable overhaul of French political life. The new centrist party he founded, République En Marche (Republic on the Move), now has an absolute majority in Parliament.

But in subtle and not-so-subtle ways, his principal ambition to date seems to be casting himself as a master negotiator in a new world where all roads somehow lead to Paris.

“To some extent, France is back again,” said Pierre Vimont, a former French ambassador to the United States and the E.U., in an interview. “You have France pushing forward its interest, but doing so in a way that makes it take a central position on the world stage, because France likes to lead and likes to be seen as leading.”

This defense of French interests has taken forms large and small, including a last-minute move to temporarily nationalize France’s largest shipyard on Thursday--to save French jobs from a potential Italian takeover. But so far, it has mostly been the world stage on which Macron has set his sights.

Last week, for instance, he hosted Libya’s two rival leaders for talks in a chateau outside Paris. The mission was tentatively successful: the meeting led to a conditional cease-fire agreement between Fayez al-Sarraj, Libya’s U.N.-backed prime minister, and Khalifa Haftar, the military leader who controls much of eastern Libya.

Likewise, Vimont said, Macron has positioned himself as a similar mediator between Israel and Palestine and even between the United States and Russia.

Macron has hosted--separately--Russian President Vladimir Putin and President Trump, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

In each of these meetings, Macron has used his considerable charm to play both sides, even while blasting Putin for Russia’s state-owned media being “organs of propaganda.” With Abbas, he opposed settlements, calling them “illegal under international law.” With Netanyahu, he decried anti-Zionism, which, for Macron, is “the reinvented form of anti-Semitism.”

But nowhere was Macron’s ability to seduce more on display than in the case of Trump, whom he invited to Paris after the two had a tense first meeting in Brussels in May. The entire affair was dominated by a six-second handshake widely interpreted as a display of Gallic machismo--and that Macron later told a French newspaper was “a moment of truth.”

In their second encounter, however, Macron was all smiles, outwardly embracing the Trump, who enjoys an approval rating of just 14 percent in France, according to a recent poll from the Pew Research Center. Even after Trump commented on the “good physical shape” of Macron’s 64-year-old wife, Brigitte, the young president referred to his American counterpart as “dear Donald” and flattered him while the cameras were rolling.

But Macron’s flattery began long before the visit, Trump revealed in an Oval Office interview with the New York Times this month. Trump--who has refused to visit Britain until Prime Minister Theresa May can “fix” a warm welcome for him--initially asked Macron whether there would be protests in Paris, he told the Times.

“I said, ‘Do you think it’s a good thing for me?’”

Trump said Macron was quick to say that protests would not be a problem, and that a lavish spectacle of French military pomp would await him on the storied Champs Elysées. Trump arrived, and there were no protests in sight. He now extols his “great relationship” with Macron.

For Dominique Moïsi, a French foreign policy expert at the Paris-based Institut Montaigne, a think tank with ties to the Macron campaign, there is potential danger in Macron’s having “put himself in the limelight.”

“At the same time, the devil is in the details,” Moïsi said. “By receiving these leading opposite forces in Paris, he’s taking a risk. What if he fails?”

In Macron’s official presidential portrait--whose heavy symbolism France’s chattering classes have taken to scrutinizing in the manner of a Holbein or a Rembrandt--he appears near a stack of books, one of which is opened on the desk behind him.

Among them is Stendhal’s “The Red and the Black,” Le Monde revealed, a classic 19th-century novel that tells the story of Julien Sorel, a young provincial who, like Macron, comes to Paris to seek his fortune and, as it happens, seduces an older woman along the way.

In the novel, things do not end particularly well for Julien, but one thing is sure: he is the slave of a staggering ambition, and nothing can stand in his way. Among the novel’s most famous lines: “Each man for himself, in that desert of egoism which is called life.”

Macron’s young presidency has not yet experienced a major domestic crisis or attack. Likewise, none of his major policy proposals have yet been implemented--including his controversial push to liberalize France’s highly regulated labor market. Those reforms are due to be introduced in Parliament this fall, and could inspire massive protests.

With an absolute majority in Parliament--populated with deputies Macron hand-picked, all of whom represent a new political party that bears his own initials--Macron is not yet used to opposition. As he said to French troops, in the midst of a dispute over military budget cuts, “I am your boss. ... I need no pressure and no commentary.”

For some, Macron’s overt allusion to Stendhal evinces a sense of humor on his part, an ironic self-awareness. For others, it represents a different kind of irony, almost an inadvertent foreshadowing.

As Moïsi put it, “The hard times are yet to come.”

[perfectlyvalid49]

Where I’ve kinda settled on this is that I blame the system for their beliefs, but the individuals for their actions.

So, for example, if someone believes that all Israelis are white settlers who colonized Israel, or that Jews control the US government or whatever, I don’t really blame them because that’s what they’ve been taught. It’s not great that they’re not interrogating those teachings (especially when presented with evidence to the contrary), but no one is immune to propaganda, and, as pointed out above, the fact that they believe what they believe is the end result of a deliberate campaign.

What I do blame individuals for is how they choose to act on those beliefs. Calling their representatives, voting “undecided” in the primaries, some protesting*, and even sharing some pretty nasty things online is reasonable. Do I love that they’re sharing blood libel? Absolutely not. But if we’re not going to blame them for believing that it’s true, then we probably can’t blame them for sharing things they think are true either.

But if they move beyond that into going after random Jews (in person or online), or deliberately using language designed to hurt Jews, or claiming "well I dislike all (apartheid states/colonialist endeavors/genocides/etc.) but only calling out Israel's actions, or in general abandoning their principles but only when it comes to Jews – that’s when it moves from “it’s not your fault you were taught these things” into “you’re deliberately making a choice to be antisemitic.” And that's the sort of behavior I blame people for.

*important note: protesting at like, an Israeli embassy, or outside your representative’s office is ok, protesting outside a synagogue or in such a way that you’re harassing Jews who are minding their own business is NOT.

One thing I've been struggling with on a personal ethical level is dealing with the knowledge that the "Antizionist" movement on the Left is not an organic, grassroots ideology. We literally have recordings of the meetings by Hamas members from the 1990s where they laid out this exact setup: They would attempt to propagandize to the American and Western Left their specific narrative that was designed to ensnare Leftists by appealing to their ideologies and shortcircuit critical thinking. And it's not a coincidence that Al Jazeera, the Qatari propaganda outfit, was founded three years after that meeting, as Qatar is deeply involved in helping push this narrative on US universities. Add to the Iranian regime's previous experience at exactly this--using Leftists as useful idiots during the Iranian Revolution--and you can see the state-funded media and educational apparatus designed to achieve this exact result.

So I'm struggling with how much blame, how much personal culpability, there can be for people like, for example, Greta Thunberg, or other Gen-Z "antizionists", who have been deliberately and intentionally mousetrapped into cheering for a literal mass murderer and rapist in Sinwar. Because an enormous amount of money and effort went into trapping them with this belief system.

But on the other hand, they're actively abandoning their previously-claimed principles en masse--as feminists, as minority group supporters, as progressives--in order to embrace the "Antizionist" belief system.

So it's a struggle for me in debating how much blame they deserve individually, when they've been ensnared systematically, but their individual choices are still reprehensible.