#israel gaza war

[jdsquared]

Cutting ties with Hillel so Jewish students can’t have Shabbos dinner or holiday services?

Don’t tell me it’s about protesting civilian casualties in Gaza.

[thebrightestwitchofherage]

People here really go “oh a post celebrating the return of hostages,, how dare they!!!!“

[viv-hollande]

Ok, so this is a post that I should have made sooner. I've been somewhat out of the loop with regards to current events and the state of discourse on this website courtesy of a pretty serious depressive episode from which I am only just now recovering. As I have emerged from this state I have been pushed towards a conclusion about this website and the state of discussion around the ongoing Israel-Gaza War that I had thus far avoided due in part to my barely possessing the energy to keep myself alive and due in part to my denial that the conclusion could be true. But that denial can no longer hold.

It has become openly apparent that the pro-Palestinian camp on this website has become popularly infused with a degree of blatant, aggressive antisemitism that I, in my naivety thought impossible in the days just after October 7. I am trying to avoid turning this into a mea culpa because that would be unproductive and feel self-serving, but I do feel an obligation to admit that I disregarded prescient warnings from Jewish users whose warnings I dismissed as over-blowing a problem that I felt was real, but more limited in scope than they made out.

I'm neither an idiot nor am I ignorant. I am well aware of the long history of antisemitism in leftist politics and in the Palestinian Liberation movement. Back at the beginning of this crisis I was prepared to see the occasional instance of antisemites using the inevitable, overwhelming Israeli retaliation as an excuse to air their hateful politics. I was prepared to see both the well-meaning but ignorant and the malicious alike sharing tweets from antisemitic pro-Palestine accounts, spreading and normalizing low-grade, subtle antisemitism. Make no mistake, this should have been condemned. Antisemitism, like all bigotries, has no 'safe' level. There is no background level of antisemitism that society should just accept as normal. But I was more focused on the inevitable cacophony of suffering that Israel would almost certainly begin meting out, and so I failed to act.

The fatal blow to my denial was the increasing prevalence of the use of quotation marks around the word "Israel" and "Israeli". The first few times I saw this, I didn't really understand what it meant. Still laboring under the belief that antisemitism was a manageable problem on the left, I was certain that most of the users on this site, well-intentioned, goodhearted, critically thinking people that they were, would have recognized and called out even disguised antisemitism before it took over a good 20-40% of all posts about the conflict. I was a damn naive fool. For those, like past me, who have not cottoned on to the meaning of the quotation marks, they have become a way to express the denial of the legitimacy or even existence of, individually or all together, the State of Israel, the Israeli people, or the right of either Jews or Israelis to identify as Israelis.

CONGRATULATIONS TUMBLR! You have successfully revived from depths of 4chan neo-Nazi boards the (((fucking echoes))).

Are you serious? Are you fuckers for real? This, right here, encapsulates the pitch-black absurdity of this whole situation and why I remained in denial for so long. Never, in a million years, would I imagine that the proudly pro-Social Justice, anti-fascist, 100% Certified SAFE-SPACE(tm) website would end up using the same language as the goddamn Nazis on 4chan. I thought this website was smarter than that. But noooo, it turns out that I was a damn naive fool.

This was where the post was originally going to end. I say my piece, hope to change a few minds, and commit myself to actually fighting antisemitism instead of sitting back and dismissing the problem. But I figure, while I'm here and while I still have the driving forces of anger and guilt pushing me along, I may as well put pen to paper and spew forth my other thoughts on the ongoing crisis. I am thus compiling a much longer post detailing my thoughts on some aspects of the current situation. [EDITED ~1:25 AM GMT, 5 Dec 2023: add link to finished post] That post will definitely be long, probably be angry, possibly wrong on some aspect of fact, and will absolutely be pretentious, preachy, self-righteous and hubristic to a positively Hellenistic degree. Brief, non-comprehensive summary so you can decide whether or not get mad at me ahead of time;

Israel does apartheid, or near enough for government work.

Israel is definitely conducting a campaign of forced displacement, possibly amounting to ethnic cleansing, but I remain unconvinced of the claim of genocide.

Hamas may or may not be a anti-colonialist revolutionary group, but it definitely is an antisemitic terrorist organization with genocidal aspirations and actively supporting them is morally indefensible. Yes, this includes the Al-Qassam Brigades.

Anti-colonial and other revolutionary movements do in fact have fundamental moral obligations and suffering oppression does not give you carte blanche to do terrorism, even when an oppressor attempts to render peaceful opposition impossible. There is a middle ground between peaceful marching and 850+ dead civilians; aim for that.

The left is just as prone to unhinged conspiracism as the right.

Verify your sources, for fuck's sake.

Use nuance. It won't kill you.

There's more, but it's a little difficult to summarize an unfinished post. If you want to argue with any of these points, go ahead, just keep in mind that a longer, more comprehensive post is in the works that might have the answer to your argument/complaint/insult/intellectual disagreement. If that post isn't up by midnight GMT on Friday, assume I forgot about it and argue away. In conclusion, antisemitism is bad, apartheid is also bad, Tumblr is a hellsite (derogatory), "From the river to the sea" is, in fact, antisemitic, seriously, stop saying it, take Jews seriously when they warn you about antisemitism instead of writing them off like a damn naive fool, and last but not least, free Palestine.

[infiniteglitterfall]

OMG, COULD EVERYONE PLEASE STOP IMMEDIATELY BELIEVING AND REPEATING DISINFORMATION?!

Sorry, I just. Was just on Twitter, and I snapped.

I literally haven't seen one true statement about Israel on social media in MONTHS.

It's gotten to the point that I'm seriously considering starting a sideblog fact-checking all of it.

PLEASE STOP BEING GARFIELD I AM BEGGING ALL OF YOU

BE NERMAL FOR FUCK'S SAKE.

I've written at least one really long post about fact-checking things before. I have another saved as a draft somewhere.

But all you really have to do at this point is GO LOOK AT AN ACTUAL NEWS SOURCE.

What do I mean by an Actual News Source?

An actual news source will tell you where it's getting its information.

Basically: Wikipedia rules apply at all times. Citation. Fucking. Needed.

Except with news articles, I don't mean a detailed footnote.

I mean, if they say, "Rosco Flubberish reported seeing a pig fly across Whatever Place. 'It was a flying pig,' he said," they're fine.

If they say, "Sources close to the President reported that the Department of Farmland Creatures launched a pig into the air this afternoon," they're fine.

If they say, "There have also been reports that pigs flew," they are purely making shit up.

Just check CNN or something. CNN checks their shit, and they're very quick on the draw.

NBC has been very reliable too, in my experience. So have ABC, Newsweek, the Jerusalem Post, the Guardian, the New York Times, the AP, PBS, the Washington Post, and Reuters.

You can break through most paywalls by putting archive.is or 12ft.io before the https:// of the URL. Or just go to either of those sites and paste the URL in the box.

Nobody is perfect. I've seen some articles from all of the above that were accurate, but left things out that I personally thought were important.

Journalists are humans, humans fuck up.

(Also, NONE OF THIS APPLIES TO OPINION PIECES ON ANY TOPIC. Opinion pieces are exactly that: opinions. They don't seem to be fact-checked anywhere, as far as I can tell. They range from super-accurate and informative to complete nonsense.)

(Surprisingly unreliable sources in my experience: Democracy Now, Jacobin, Workers World Party. The latter two act like news sites but are basically running nothing but opinion pieces; Democracy Now can do important deep dives, but I've also seen news coverage from it that was wildly misinformed in that same way.

On the flip side, Slate and the Atlantic are largely opinion -- the Atlantic more than Slate, maybe -- but they often have really well-researched analysis of political situations. Ditto Teen Vogue, and sometimes Vox.)

You don't have to read CNN or the NYT or whateverfor fun. You don't have to make it one of your news sources.

Just. Do a quick check on Google News before you assume anything is true, and then run it through a bullshit filter as described above.

You are being actively lied to, all the time. So am I. We all are.

And people will believe and repeat literally anything that sounds about right.

That's just human nature.

That is WHY none of us are immune to propaganda.

if you want my personal shortlist of Bad Sources, as in Sources That Consistently Publish Absolute Falsehoods:

Any and all state-owned or state-controlled media. For example:

Al Jazeera is owned by the Qatari government, and so are a bunch of other news sites.

Mehr News, the Tehran Times, Al-Quds TV, and Al-Alam are owned by the dictatorship of Iran.

Oops. Looks like every form of broadcast Iranian news media is owned by the dictatorship of Iran, which has a monopoly.

Palestinian Broadcasting Corporation, Palestinian News and Info Agency, and Al-Hayat Al-Jadida are owned by the government of Palestine (the Palestinian Authority)

Al-Aqsa TV and Felesteen are owned by Hamas.

TASS / Russia News Agency, Russia Today, and a fuckton of others are owned by the Russian government.

State Media Monitor seems to do a pretty great job of tracking and listing these things. Check out your own country there!

I specifically listed those ones because some of them (especially Al Jazeera, Mehr News, and TASS) are sites I've seen come up frequently on Tumblr, or in my attempts to fact-check what people are saying here and on Twitter. The rest are just more examples from the same governments.

Al Jazeera deserves special notice because it's become a very popular leftist news source. Believe me, I used to read it all the time too.

It can be reliable and accurate sometimes. But:

It consistently tweets things that are unsourced, never appear anywhere else, and that would be big news you'd expect it to follow up on if they were true. It seems to be following a strategy of "tweet every rumor you hear in case it's true, so you can get the scoop."

It also does this with its liveblogs of the war. And ALL its coverage of the war at this point is liveblogs. So things that are verifiably true will run right next to things that are complete hearsay, but are too long to just tweet.

This is especially dangerous because as far as I can tell, Al Jazeera doesn't delete anything that turns out to be false.

I've also seen regular news articles in Al Jazeera, on multiple topics, that veer from Absolutely True Statements to Wildly Exaggerated Numbers and Speculation. Stuff you wouldn't expect a source on, like statistics or descriptions. And there's no way to tell the difference unless you already know a topic really well, or are fact-checking them while you read.

One especially terrible example, from Gazan activist Ahmed Fouad Alkhatib:

Al Jazeera has never posted or published a correction.

Alkhatib has also blamed it for destabilizing the region, although he's exaggerating about it being Hamas's official propaganda outlet:

TL;DR: If you see a Tumblr post making any kind of factual news statement without a link, at this point you need to assume it is absolutely not true. And either scroll on past, or go check Google News.

If there IS a link, you need to click through to see what it's from and what it actually says.

(Honestly, you need to do that with Wikipedia too. I've repeatedly clicked through on citations that absolutely did not say what the article implied they did.)

And pro tip: on mobile, you can just smack a button to sort Google's news results by most recent, and it helps A LOT. There's gotta be a way to do the same on desktop, but if there is, it's not immediately visible, which sucks.

[neonlol-xe]

Support Israel!

Alright, first of all, the 'Free Palestine' shit is pissing me off. People don't realize that Israel isn't committing genocide, they're at war. Plus, I do recall Palestine holding Americans hostage... So why in the LIVING HELL would you side with Palestine? I say support Israel, death to Palestine. Reblog if you agree with me. (And I don't care if I'm offending you, @dorkasaurus-club)

Get this trending, plz. Israel should be supported in this war, but not many Americans are supportive. If you don't agree with me, then you may as well just unfollow me.

(I usually wouldn't speak politics on social media, but I felt like I had to say this because COME ON! Palestine are terrorists! And no, this doesn't mean I'm Conservative. I take opinions from both sides.)

[athymelyreply]

A highly recommended read. Full text of article under cut

On October 7, I was not hiding with my child in the safe room. My house was not burnt to the ground, and my husband didn't blow me a last kiss before his killer fired a fatal bullet.

I was safely at home in London where I have lived for over 30 years when my elderly peace-activist parents, Oded and Yocheved Lifschitz, along with 77 others members of the community, were taken hostage, barefoot and in their pajamas from their homes in the kibbutz where I was born and raised.

Israel's hostages in Gaza: A matter of life and death

Israeli peace activists who lost loved ones in the Hamas massacre stand their ground

What we can learn from released Hamas hostage Yocheved Lifshitz

For the past 229 days, together with the families of the other of hostages taken captive which now number 128, we have taken part in the fight for the lives of our loved ones.

A photo of the writer, Sharone Lifschitz's parents, Yocheved and Oded Lifschitz, who were both kidnapped by Hamas to Gaza on October 7. To date, only Yocheved Lifschitz has returned. Credit: Amiram Oren

In Nir Oz, my family's kibbutz, one in four people (117 in total), were either executed or kidnapped. We are still piecing together the events of that brutal day that Hamas terrorists and some Gazan civilians, perpetrated medieval levels of cruelty, driven by hate and revenge, blinded by radical religious ideology and super-charged with amphetamines.

Last month, at the "Seder in the Streets" event in New York, activist Naomi Klein spoke as if none of that ever took place. Instead, addressing hundreds who gathered for a combination Passover Seder and protest of the war in Gaza, she spoke of what she termed the "False Idol of Zionism", comparing Jewish support of it to the Israelites "worshiping" the golden calf and recalling Moses' rage seeing the spectacle.

Klein's interpretation seems to miss the point: Moses, unlike Klein, did not disengage. He did not give up on his people when they worshipped a false idol. Instead, without compromising his integrity and beliefs, he guided them through the desert for forty more years in their journey to become a nation. Klein, at this dangerous moment in history, is failing to lead her listeners to take responsibility, to engage and work towards a shared future in the region for Jews and Palestinians, one built on the preciousness of life on both sides and an understanding of the original intention of Zionism: the necessity for a safe home for the Jewish people.

"Seder in the Street" was also protesting the heartbreaking and ongoing humanitarian crisis in Gaza and settler violence in the West Bank. Many in Israel, like my parents, would agree. Yet their plight and that of the other hostages – most of them civilians, from a baby boy of one year to a man of 86 - are not mentioned at Seder in the Streets or other gatherings of far-left pro-Palestinian Jewish activists.

My father, Oded Lifschitz, who is 83, and his friends who are also hostages, all in their late 70s and 80s, have worked for peace for decades. My mother, Yocheved Lifschitz, was thankfully released after 17 days of captivity.

Yocheved Lifschitz after being released from 17 days in Hamas captivity, in Tel Aviv, Israel in late October. Credit: Tomer Appelbaum

How much more effective these protests could be if activists abroad could act as a bridge between the pro-Palestinian movement and progressives fighting for peace in Israel?

Hamas, a terrorist organization which has been systematically stripping freedom, women's rights and democracy from the Gaza strip since 2006 are also strangely left out of the discussion. In fact, I see more criticism of the Hamas attack and crimes from moderate Palestinian voices than from prominent Jewish voices of the pro-Palestinian movement in the United States and Europe.

Klein is instead content in disengaging from Israel based on a distorted idea of Zionism and in so doing offers no solidarity with the moderate, progressive Jews living in Israel and for whom rejecting Zionism is irrelevant at this moment. Whether we like our government's policies or hate them as many do, Israel is home. Just as Canada is Klein's home, whether or not she likes the policies of the Canadian government or condones its mistreatment of its Indigenous population.

I consider myself pro-Palestinian. My family has always fought for a shared future for our two peoples, understanding this key point: our fates are interlinked. My parents have advocated for peace and equality for and with the Palestinians since the 1960s. We have united as a family to protest policies of the current Israeli government we find abhorrent. I wish for the Palestinians what I want for my own people: to live without bloodshed, in their own democratic state, as part of a negotiated two-state solution.

The facts are indisputable to Zionists and non-Zionists alike: There are about 7 million Jews and 7 million Palestinians living in Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories of the West Bank and Gaza. Jewish Israelis cannot be expected to reject the idea that they can and should have the right to live safely in Israel. Without Israel, where would they go?

Everyone who cares about what's best for the region must strengthen those who are working for a peaceful future. As my father always says, "You make peace with your enemies."

A Palestinian family rides on the back of a donkey-drawn carriage next to damaged buildings in Khan Yunis, in the southern Gaza Strip, in April.Credit: AFP

Thanks to international efforts to formulate a plan for the "day after" the war in Gaza, we are potentially closer to a long-term political agreement to lift us out of conflict than ever before. To help facilitate it, American and European progressives must distinguish between religious fanatics on both sides and those working toward a path of justice and peace for everyone in the region.

We must differentiate the liberal American pro-Palestinian activists from those who justify Hamas atrocities as acts of resistance. The dominant current narrative of the American far left, including the Jews among them, unwittingly aligns with Iran, and with antidemocratic and illiberal forces.

Instead of fostering hate and promoting disengagement from Israel, progressives abroad should help those in the region regain a sense that another future is possible and advocate for a negotiated political agreement that would create a state of Palestine established alongside the state of Israel. It won't be perfect, but it will be a good start.

The work of advocating for a different, sustainable future, must start with a call for the immediate release of hostages as part of a long-term agreement, backed by America and its allies, including moderate Arab states, that has the potential to transform the lives of Palestinians and Israelis by rescuing them from this ongoing tragedy. To fail to do so is to fail not just the hostages and their families, but to throw all the people of the region further into the abyss and undo the inspiring work of moderate forces within Israeli and Palestinian society.

In this, our darkest hour, we ask ourselves, who is our enemy? My enemy is the blind hate that seeks to erase the humanity of the other side. All of us who are horrified by what is unfolding in Gaza should work toward empowering the people of the region to move away from our common enemy. That's not Zionism, but rather the religious fanaticism we have within both our societies – Israeli and Palestinian – that threatens to engulf us all.

Sometimes, I want to shout at the news on TV, to remind people that their indulgent engagement in hatred of one side is so futile, so self-congratulatory. We can do better.

As we bleed and grieve, and in the case of families like my own – hang suspended between hope and despair for the fate of our loved ones, we must seek points of human connection between Jews and Palestinians, we must fight, not against one another, but for a practical solution that dismantles the status quo so that we can all survive – and live in freedom and security.

Sharone Lifschitz is a London-based filmmaker and academic originally from Kibbutz Nir Oz, whose parents were taken hostage on October 7. On Twitter: @Lifschitz_sha

[youdontloveme-yet]

Everything is Hamas, guys. There is nothing but Hamas in this world.

[hiba91]

Sinwar could have sent his children abroad. He could have collaborated with the occupiers, made deals with them, and received abundant wealth, as others have done, saving himself and his family and living a peaceful life far from this danger. He could have abandoned the resistance and the defense of his land and homeland. At the very least, he could have stayed hidden in the tunnel, giving orders to other fighters.

However, he chose to face the fight side by side with his fellow fighters. He preferred to be on the battlefield, fighting bravely. Even after his right hand was amputated, he continued to fight with his left. He fought until the last moment, until his final breath. His martyrdom was a victory, and his death brought life. -This is what the occupiers' video documented in Sinwar's final moments, capturing his courage in battle until the very end.-

He remains the courageous, legendary leader who has always confounded the occupiers, even in the eyes of his enemies, no matter how hard they try to change this truth.

[palestinegenocide]

DAY 171

- Gaza: Three Hospitals under military siege

- Underreporting of sexual violence against Palestinians

- “Horrific scenes” at European Hospital 

- Israel bars UNRWA from northern Gaza

- UN Resolution for ceasefire

- No progress on negotiations.

[minhosimthings]

I am Moamen from Gaza, married and father of three children Ayman, waseem and Elias.

I was living in an apartment in Al-Nasr neighbourhood, but now I'm in a tent on the street because of the war and I lost my house. I have been displaced to Deir al-Balah since the beginning of the war and suffering from its ravages, Extremely heat in the day and very cold at night, drowning when the rain falls, I have no income because I was working as Taxi-driver and there is no car anymore, my children suffer from skin diseases, malnutrition and lack of hygiene.

Please visit my profile and donate through the link🙏🏼🍉

Please check out Moamen's pinned post for her gofundme!

[thewales-family]

The Prince of Wales visits the British Red Cross as he undertakes engagements which recognise the human suffering caused by the ongoing war in the Middle East and the subsequent conflict in Gaza, at British Red Cross HQ in London, England -February 20th 2024.

[jdsquared]

I have a theory why people have such a hard time seeing the campus protests’ anti-Zionism as anti-Semitic.

Even if we understand their attacks on bombing Gaza, why aren’t they calling for a peaceful two-state solution? Why are they anti-Zionist? This will take some explanation and I explain some things for non-Jews so you understand how your Jewish friends are feeling right now.

Someone recently put it this way, and it all clicked for me:

“We aren’t Jews because we practice Judaism. We practice Judaism because we are Jews.”

Think of it this way. The Cherokee have certain traditional rituals and spiritual beliefs. But it’s not those rituals or beliefs that define them as Cherokee. The Cherokee are a tribe – a people. Not a religion.

That’s why, like the Cherokee, Jews don’t proselytize. We’re not a belief system that’s looking to convince others to believe. Sure, there are ways to become part of the people, but simply deciding to believe what we believe and practice our rituals isn’t it. You can believe in the absolute truth of 100% of the Torah and the rest of the Jewish Bible, and that doesn’t in any way make you part of the Jewish people. That’s just believing that God gave certain ritual and moral instructions to the Jewish people. Just like putting on Cherokee garb and rituals wouldn’t make you Cherokee.

The category error comes from the fact that it’s easy to try to put Judaism into the same category as Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, etc. But it doesn’t really belong there. It’s like how Christians slip into categorizing Hanuakah as “Jewish Christmas” and think that their Christmas messages (e.g., Peace on Earth) fits with our Hanukah message (fight a war to resist assimilation). The easy – and seemingly good ecumenical thing to do is to look for our similarities. But it’s a mistake in this context.

Jews are a distinct people like the Cherokee, not a bunch of people with shared beliefs like Christians or Muslims.

The Left would surely be on the side of the Cherokee's sovereign aspirations, so why not the Jews?

[thebrightestwitchofherage]

Do you condemn the IDF for it's use of sexual violence against POWs

First of all, of course, I do??? posing this as bait or whatever is just stupid, why don't you condemn the constant violence against Israeli women? Me posting about antisemitism & believing that I deserve to live peacefully as a Jewish-Israeli has nothing to do with that, and I think you know that asking this question... You probably won't actually read this but:

You have to note that the IDF as a whole doesn't do that. It's not a repeating occurrence or a protocol. There were only a few documented \ legit cases happening *ever*. By twisted individuals and not the entire organization...

Also, unlike Hamas and other terrorist organizations, Israel doesn't currently keep any POWs. It holds terrorists incarcerated (most of them actively participated in the October 7th attack)- that's completely different. -Those rumors have been disproved so many times, and they all stem from misinformation and a twisted blood libel. There's a huge difference between "prisoners of war" and captured terrorists. The actual "POWs" that are currently going through this are the 101 Israeli hostages held captive by Hamas. mostly women*. -I'm assuming you're referring to where reservists serving as prison guards SA'd imprisoned captured Hamas terrorists; this caused a major public uproar, and the felons were tried and treated as such.

***This has actually been corroborated by both testaments of freed hostages & the UN's official committee on sexual crimes against women from earlier this year (you can read the full report on the pinned post on my blog, here).

----

Anyways, I'm tired of these "questions" from Anti- Zionists trying to "test" me. BRING THEM HOME NOW

[rodwacker85]

zionists and anybody else neutral on the israel-palestine conflict stay the fuck away from my blog

children are DYING!! KIDS!! WHO CARES ABOUT THE MET GALA OR LAMAR V. DRAKE CHILDREN ARE DYING AND WE ARE DOING NOTHING ABOUT IT. YOU HAVE ONLY YOURSELF TO BLAME FOR NOT BEING INFORMED

i don’t care if i’m shoving this on my mutuals or anyone else who comes across it. reblog this

i will admit, i was not informed too well but thanks to my friend reblogging a bunch of israel-palestine awareness posts i now know the extent of what’s going on. proof that sharing does work

FREE PALESTINE 🇵🇸

FREE CONGO

FREE RAFAH

FREE GAZA

CEASEFIRE NOW!

[infiniteglitterfall]

Please note, for the purposes of this poll:

Don't post judgments in the notes. (Of people who vote a particular way, of autistics, of whomstever.)

Allistic means non-autistic.

If you're not sure which you are (e.g. you're sure you're allistic, but autistic people keep insisting you're not): I personally think watching this video and seeing whether you tend to be guided by your beliefs, or by new information, is a good quick test.

Nobody can see how you responded. Even I can't see individual responses.

(Unless you say something in a reply/reblog. Everyone can see replies/reblogs, just like on any other post.)

No blame attaches, as my friend @siriosa always says. Your response does not indicate any other opinions about anything. This is not a test. Nor is it secretly a larger question.

It is ESPECIALLY not a test to see which group is more moral, ethical, or politically aware.

I'm just curious about how the information we have access to, and the community discourse around it, plays out if you separate autistic and allistic people. Probably it doesn't, and this is not a scientific study, but I wanna ask.