#israel Palestine

[poetessinthepit]

Excerpt from the "Woman in Palestine Wikipedia Entry"

[goose-onthe-loose]

Congratulations! You've just left the the ten millionth "free Palestine" comment on a post about a Jew in Ohio celebrating a holiday. This action has activated the latent gene in every Jewish person's DNA which gives us the knowledge of Bibi Netanyahu's personal phone number. I've already called him, he said he'll call off the bombing right away. Every Jew in the world will now immediately self-destruct. Your Nobel Peace Prize will arrive in three to five business days.

[the-catboy-minyan]

I'm under the firm belief that the reason we see so much holocaust denial and denial of the horrors of October 7 on the left, is because if they admitted to themselves those events are real, they'd agree with the far right pro-Israeli crowd.

"event A was horrible and violent, therefore we should respond with an equally horrible and violent event B"

a regular person's response would be "event A was horrible, but the right solution isn't to respond with B, we should aim for a peaceful resolution", but a lot of leftists believe in the Glorious Revolution™ and genuinely believe violence for violence is justified, and that if it was white on black violence they'd choose to respond the exact same way if not worse, but they don't want to agree with event B because it's very evidently BAD. so they deny event A.

they can't believe the rapes happened, the live burning of people inside bomb shelters, the kidnappings, the war crimes. because if they did, they'd genuinely believe revenge killing innocent palestinians is ok, just look at how they respond to accusations of the IDF doing similar things, they genuinely believe (((zionists))) should be killed for these types of crimes, because there are "no Israeli civilians" and every last one is an accomplice.

if Jews were black and Palestinians were white Europeans, most of these people would support Netanyahu.

thank you for coming to my TED talk.

[starlightomatic]

I'm asking this in good faith, but also in an admitted lack of full understanding. If you don't have the energy to engage with this topic anymore please disregard it.

Someone on your post noted the comparison of Israel-Palestine to that of the Native Americans, but the way I read it it seemed like they were putting Palestinians in the role of the native Americans and Israel as the colonizing force, but historically wouldn't it be the Jewish people who are the Native Americans in that comparison? I ask because from what I know it would be the Jewish people in what is now Israel at the same time in history as the Natives in the Americas. Am I misinformed about that? I'm not trying to say Palestine would be the colonizing force in that comparison btw, just that if we're talking about natives to the land, it seems to me like it'd be the Jewish people.

tbh neither maps on exactly

the expulsion of jews from what is now israel/palestine started in 70 AD and then was a gradual process over the next few hundred years as people moved out due to oppression by various rulers, poverty, etc

palestinians, as far as i understand it, likely descend from a mix of some of the jews who were left behind and arabs who conquered the land. they've been there for hundreds of years, and some families have owned the same land for all of that time

the thing about indigeneity as it's been explained to me is that it's not about origin so much as relationship to colonization. and the founding of israel was colonization -- herzl actually used that word himself in his writings.

you know the jnf? the original purpose was to exploit a feature of ottoman land law. if you planted a tree on someone's land and they didn't remove it for a certain number of years, you could claim ownership of that land. this and other methods were used to steal parcels of land from palestinians.

"your ethnicity stole the land from our ethnicity, to whom the land belongs" is a fucked up framework that seems really akin to blood and soil (as does "our ethnicity has rightful ownership of this land from ancient times, so your ethnicity needs to clear out"), but genuinely wresting ownership from individuals owners really can be said to be stealing land.

also, the nakba was a series of massacres and fighting that led to a huge influx of palestinian refugees from many areas in israel/palestine, and israel seized control of the land and homes they vacated to hand over to jews. israel used the jnf, again, to cover the ruins of many palestinian villages with trees to obscure the fact that they were ever there. in general israel built over many palestinian villages and the mindset in israel is not to know and not to think about it.

personally i think the indigeneity debate is not useful. it feels sometimes that jews think that if we can prove we lived in israel in ancient times (we did, a lot of people insist we didn't because it is inconvenient), we can justify things like the above. my position is that it does not justify it, because it is not an excuse for causing human suffering.

however, many people use a framework that is not about human suffering, but about how invading foreign jews stole the land from the "rightful" ethnic group. i don't agree with that either. especially when it becomes an excuse to support ethnic cleansing in the other direction. that is to say: they locate the crime not in the invasion but in the foreignness. such people are motivated to deny the historical fact of jewish origins in israel, because their argument is based on jewish foreignness.

but anyway, the comparison to indigenous peoples in the americas refers to the way that palestinians experienced the establishment of the state of israel -- starting with small groups of settlers, involving violence early on and then massacres, and later ethnic cleansing and displacement. cities and towns destroyed. shoved into small areas with few resources. lack of power and autonomy.

in addition, the way the early zionist leaders conceptualized themselves as enlightened europeans colonizing land with disdain for the existing residents.

[internationem]

Just a reminder: intent is much, much more important to genocide than the amount of people dying. simply put, the amount of dead civilians isn't what makes a genocide a genocide.

for example, up to 33k bosnians are estimated to have died because of the bosnian genocide. in contrast, the estimated amount of japanese civilians dead during WWII is between 330k and 900k. yet most (serious) people wouldn't ever consider that there was a genocide against the japanese people. why? well, no government wanted to, planned or carried out systematic attacks with the intent of erasing, in whole or in part, the japanese people. yet, however, it is fairly easy to prove that the serbs wanted the bosnians gone and acted accordingly. You can even fullfill the material criteria for the Genocide Convention (ie killing people, or causing body or mental harm to a population) to a certain extent but if the intent behind those actions isn't to destroy a national/ethnic/etc group, then it's not genocide, the fullfilment of the material elements themselves aren't proof that there's a genocide without fullfilment of the mental element.

This isn't to overlook civilian deaths, but truth is, in modern warfare, civilians ARE gonna die, and that sucks massively, but we have a a whole branch of international law that help mitigate a lot of civilian deaths and allow for criminals to be held accountable for violation of civilian rights and livs, without having to erroneously call every single conflict where people die a genocide.

Similarly, it may be true that a lot more people are dying in the Israel-Gaza war than in the 7/10 attacks, but why did Hamas attack Israel in the first place? Why has Israel been attacked fairly frequently since it's independence? Because they want to completely erase Israel as a whole and expel (and kill, or best case scenario, convert) the jewish people out of the Middle East. This is very easy to prove, read Hamas founding charter and literally any history book that talks about wars against Israel or the expulsion of Jews from several ME countries. It's what the whole "from the river to the sea" slogan is about. It's also the very reason Israel needs to exist. But meanwhile, there's little to nothing that points out Israel wants to wipe out Palestinians as a group: 20% of their citizens are Palestinians who enjoy the same rights as Jewish citizens of Israel and aren't targeted, even Palestinians of the West Bank aren't usually targeted in a way that would even imply the IDF wants to erase them as a group, and even considering the Gaza campaign, its objective is to erradicate Hamas, not Palestinians, and nothing in Israel's policy outwardly implicates they want to erradicate all Gazans. Palestine, and especially Gaza, has massive population growth, which wouldn't make sense if there was a genocide campaign against them. This isn't to say the IDF is doing everything perfectly or that there aren't war crimes being commited. But war crimes don't mean genocide.

Calling what's happening in Gaza genocide is antisemitic, because not only are we applying different standards to Israel than we do any other country, we are also saying that Jewish people defending themselves is, inherently, a crime, one of the worst crimes defined at that. But it's also harmful to palestinians, because claiming that Israel's war against Hamas is a war against Palestinians equates Palestinians (many of whom just want to live regular lives, not war) with terrorists (who also target them, by the way), which seems islamophobic as hell if i'm being honest. it is also insensitive and damaging to every group that has been the victim of genocide, and every group which might be a victim of a genocide in the future, because how you're twisting the definition of the word to mean whatever you want it to mean. If everything is a genocide, nothing is.

[iliothermia]

I finally got to mourn with others tonight. My synagogue was as full as a high holiday service. Seeing my rabbi I admire more than anyone crying broke my heart, she gave me a hug and told me I was so important to her. I think that's one of those voice clips that will stay in my brain forever. I don't have a mom so it just hit me hard. A 70 year old woman I'd just met insisted on driving me home, we talked about our worries for innocent Palestinians who are suffering while mourning the horrors we've seen the past few days, the stories of all the people who are gone that people knew personally at the vigil tonight. The lady told me if I hid the 10$ I offered her for gas in her car she'd hunt me down.. So I left 11$. I hope I see her again

[maaarine]

the Flemish/Belgian public broadcaster (VRT) interrupted its programs to show this message at the start of the Eurovision semi-final:

"This is a trade union action. We condemn the human rights violations perpetrated by the state of Israel. Moreover the state of Israel is destroying press freedom. That's why we interrupt the image for a moment. #CeasefireNow #StopGenocide"

Israel qualified for the final while Belgium didn't, but at least this happened

[autisticdoomslayer]

Hey um so I completely agree that bombing palestinians is bad but can y'all please stop pretending that the way to fix the tragedy in Palestine is to bomb American synagogues maybe

[nachobsns]

anyway like idk who needs to hear this but as a goy who also used to be “antizionist” i am begging y’all to just be normal about the jews please. you can and should advocate for the safety and self determination of palestinians without engaging in centuries-old antisemitic rhetoric. there is nothing any one jew could do, no opinion they could hold, that justifies the absolute bigoted vitriol being directed at them online right now

[woman-respecter]

palestinian civilians do not deserve to be punished for the actions of hamas. yes even the civilians who are antisemitic because of the culture they grew up in. none of them deserve any of the shit that is happening to them. i can’t believe this has to be said.

[poetessinthepit]

The Flour Massacre was a genocidal act in and of itself. It has already become a notorious event amongst a whole campaign of human rights abuse after human rights abuse. It will be remembered in history like Wounded Knee, My Lai, and Srebrenica. Anyone in denial of that fact can not be helped. Nothing will get through to them. What horror could possibly stir them from complacency?

[thecorvidforest]

i am begging you all not to stay off social media these coming weeks. i’m seeing so many white people say shit like “protect your peace” but there are ways to do that that don’t involve turning your back on active genocide.

if you have a support system, use it. talk about your feelings instead of burying them and pretending nothing is happening. if you don’t have people to talk to, journal about it. identify what you’re feeling, allow yourself to feel it, put words to it. use whatever community you have. regulate, don’t ignore. turning your back on Palestine needs to be a last fucking resort.

this is not meant to guilt you and i’m not saying you’re a bad person if you need to step away to keep yourself safe. this is heavy shit for all of us. what i am saying is that there is a massive amount of privilege in being able to simply shut off your phone and do something else, and it is extremely easy to take advantage of that privilege. there are steps you can take before closing your eyes to what’s happening.

[the-catboy-minyan]

you can be both pro-Israel and pro-Palestine, just sayin'

edit:

fucking read the tags before you reblog a Hamas apologist saying "you can't be both pro the oppressor and pro the oppressed". I'm talking about the countries, not their governments.

[alicearmageddon]

"The North Korean regime in the ‘50s developed a series of remarkably effective torture techniques, techniques that were so effective, in fact, that they were able to make captured American airmen admit to all sorts of atrocities they had not in fact committed, all the time, being convinced they had not, actually, been tortured. The techniques were quite simple. Just make the victim do something mildly uncomfortable—sit on the edge of chair, for example, or lean against a wall in a slightly awkward position—only, make them do it for an extremely long period of time. After eight hours the victim would be willing to do virtually anything to make it stop. But try going to the International Court of Justice at The Hague and tell them you’ve been made to sit on the edge of a chair all day. Even the victims were unwilling to describe their captors as torturers. When the CIA learned about these techniques—according to Korean friends of mine, they’re actually just particularly sadistic versions of classic Korean ways of punishing small children—they were intrigued, and, apparently, conducted extensive research on how they could be adopted for their own detention centers.

Again, sometimes, in Palestine, one feels one is in an entire country that’s being treated this way. Obviously, there is also outright torture, people who are actually being shot, beaten, tortured, or violently abused. But I’m speaking here even of the ones that aren’t. For most, it’s as if the very texture of everyday life has been designed to be intolerable—only, in a way that you can never quite say is exactly a human rights violation. There’s never enough water. Showering requires almost military discipline. You can’t get a permit. You’re always standing in line. If something breaks it’s impossible to get permission to fix it. Or else you can’t get spare parts. There are four different bodies of law that might apply to any legal situation (Ottoman, British, Jordanian, Israeli), it’s anyone’s guess which court will say what applies where, or what document is required, or acceptable. Most rules are not even supposed to make sense. It can take eight hours to drive 20 kilometers to see your girlfriend, and doing so will almost certainly mean having machine guns waved in your faces and being shouted at in a language you half understand by people who think you’re subhuman. So you do most of your dalliance by phone. When you can afford the minutes. There are endless traffic jams before and after checkpoints and drivers bicker and curse and try not to take it out on one another. Everyone lives no more than 12 or 15 miles from the Mediterranean but even on the hottest day, it’s absolutely impossible to get to the beach. Unless you climb the wall, there are places you can do that; but then you can expect to be hunted every moment by security patrols. Of course teenagers do it anyway. But it means swimming is always accompanied by the fear of being shot. If you’re a trader, or a laborer, or a driver, or a tobacco farmer, or clerk, the very process of subsistence is continual stream of minor humiliations. Your tomatoes are held and left two days to rot while someone grins at you. You have to beg to get your child out of detention. And if you do go to beseech the guards, those same guards might arbitrarily decide to hold you to pressure him to confess to rock-throwing, and suddenly you are in a concrete cell without cigarettes. Your toilet backs up. And you realize: you’re going to have to live like this forever. There is no “political process.” It will never end. Barring some kind of divine intervention, you can expect to be facing exactly this sort of terror and absurdity for the rest of your natural life."

-David Graeber, Reflections from a Visit to the West Bank

[vermilionstarlight]

the concept of "lesser evilism" as a derisive term annoys the shit out of me. as long as you strive for a better option, when it comes down to the wire, you'd better fucking pick the least evil one. nobody gives a fuck about how bad it feels, the action that causes the least suffering is the one you should do.

you shouldn't just complacently accept whatever lesser evil you're handed, either. do your best to improve the options, stack the deck in our favor, etcetera. pressuring Kamala to be more hard-line on Israel, or engaging in canvassing or rhetoric or programs to garner more public support and allow us to push for better. these are all good things that should be done. but, once you've pressured and the general election comes along, you either vote Kamala or you're contributing to the suffering of innumerable people.

if one candidate will ineffectually gesture at stopping the Palestinian massacre (which is not guaranteed, Kamala is already indicating she is amenable to being more hardline on addressing Israel's atrocities and preventing further bloodshed), and the other candidate will support Israel even harder AND put trannies and immigrants in camps and revoke years of queer and women's rights? the clearest option is to vote for the former and pressure them to be better.

[cigarette-catgirl]

US CITIZENS. AMERICANS. CALL YOUR SENATORS.

As a Palestinian, and on behalf of all the Palestinians who do not have the resources and platform to do this, I call on you to pressure your senators and your congress to vote to discontinue aid to Israel.

Gonna use whatever platform I have to push for these. Please, do not let this go through and disappear from the public conversation. This genocide has gone long enough and we need any step forward to destroying the Israeli aparthied we can get.

CALL YOUR SENATORS.