#israel gaza war

[choppedcowboydinosaur]

It's funny seeing this thread since it reminds me of a part of the podcast documentary Fear and Loathing in the New Jerusalem by the Martyr Made podcast. Where he mentions that during the early days of the Zionist project the Guardian was pro Zionist while the Daily Mail was pro-Palestinian. Granted this was back in the 20's and he didn't mention the Telegraph. But it is interesting to see how stances have changed over time.

The Telegraph just confirmed that being against genocide is being against Israel.

[thebrightestwitchofherage]

You don’t deserve to celebrate a ceasefire if you called for an intifada

[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.

[centrally-unplanned]

Guess I should throw out some Gaza Ceasefire Thoughts - from a political history perspective it certainly is interesting:

-- As for the deal itself, it is pretty much "the best one could realistically hope for", though funnily enough the details aren't that surprising. Israel for some time has had very little strategy in Gaza (beyond "release the hostages or we keep blowing up random blocks"), and so them agreeing to these terms is the expected outcome. Hamas also lacked any real strategic options, but in the summer you could at least argue "the status quo of radicalizing the population and shredding Israeli reputation is beneficial", so you can see why both sides really weren't committing to anything before in the summer. Things have changed since then, though.

-- The straight-up-humiliating defeat of Hezbollah in the fall was a complete game-changer for the strategic situation. As much as Hamas had a strategy it was "wait for Hezbollah/Iran to carry the weight of the fight", and that was going not-awfully through the summer. Then Israel absolutely shattered Hezbollah to the point where their ability to control Lebanese politics is up-for-grabs, and any real threat to Israel is temporarily gone. Meanwhile Iran stacked that defeat with the revolution in Syria and their own military capacity losses, and while there is real tension in Iran between realist & radicalist factions, the current winds are blowing towards retreat. Combine that with the death of Sinwar, and the new Hamas leadership had no cards left to play. By the same token, Israel has few fights left to win.

-- This is why negotiations resumed in earnest in October/November, and right now you are seeing some pretty heavy exaggeration of the role of the Trump administration in this deal. It has been being hashed out for months, you can easily point to articles about progress throughout both of those months (example) and the Biden administration was heavily involved in the Doha talks. These things just take time, and both sides had a dramatic incentive shift recently. That is carrying the most weight here - talks were "90% complete" before any Trump reps arrived on the scene.

-- But the election certainly did play a role here, primarily because it was inducing uncertainty and changing incentives in the US. While it was going on you can see how both sides could "hope" that new administrations might let them gain an advantage, and understood that commitments from the Biden administration in August just weren't very meaningful. Additionally, while not very important the war was "an issue" in the election, and so the "action space" of politicians was shaped by that. Why not just...wait, and see how things go, right? Now there is no more reason to wait, you know what you got.

--I don't want to take all credit away from Trump on this, though. A theme I will continue to harp on, the "Imperial Presidency" has advantages. Biden was a perpetual faction appeaser, and you could credibly call his bluff on any decision around the war by going "you won't take the heat from your own party on this" from the left or the right. Trump can much more credibly claim "I don't give a fuck what I 'said on the campaign trail', I say what goes, make a deal or I will absolutely spite you". This is not a great strategy in a lot of contexts, but in foreign policy you need this sometimes. Dems really do need to take notes here, more unity in either direction and more strong brinksmanship from Biden would have been better.

--Now let's walk that back a bit - it is way easier for the Trump administration to play hardball. Elections make hard decisions much more difficult to pull off, as political factions can punish you more easily. The Dems have an asymmetric disadvantage here - they are inherently the "dove" party facing a topic where the median American voter is generally hawkish, and they are the party that contains a notable split within itself on the issue. Meanwhile Republicans all agree. No longer facing electoral pressure, it is much easier for Republicans to play a "Nixon goes to China" card and credibly browbeat Israel. No one will really think the Republicans are anti-Israel even if they do that, and Dems can't accuse them effectively of foul play because the party itself is split on the topic. This is "unfair" in a certain sense, for sure, but such is politics.

--I would be assigning way less credulity to the complaints amoung the Israeli far-right about Trump or Netanyahu "betraying" them. The far-right in Israeli is a powerful force, for sure, but by no means do they command the majority. They want to annex the West Bank and all that, but most Israelis disagree, the military isn't on board, it would jeopardize US/Arab ties, etc. Never say never but that was not really in the cards - if it was they would have done it already. Slow-roll settlement expansion is the plan, that will continue, but meanwhile there is nothing left to do in Gaza. Netanyahu is of course going to say publicly "oh boo hoo my hands were tied by the Americans I'm so sorry" while he gets almost all of his realistic goals. This is politics 101 stuff - though if the approval vote on Thursday goes sour then I am wrong on this, part of why I am posting it today. (Also another reason to not assign too much credit to the Trump admin - easy to "bully" someone who wants to be bullied)

Okay done - hopefully the ceasefire sticks, obviously this has been a disastrous war for almost all involved, never look the imperfect status quo horse in the mouth. It isn't the world one would want but it is better than the one we have right now.

[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.

[uboat53]

Dude, the more I read about the movement to "punish Democrats" over their support for Israel in Gaza, the more it just reads like an exercise in mass delusion. SHORT RANT (TM)?

First of all, the amount of people who claim that Harris wasn't willing to call for a cease-fire... when she actually did. Numerous times. You can look it up, that's a thing she actually did.

Secondly, the people who are upset that Harris and Biden didn't push for an arms embargo against Israel or declare Israel to be in violation of US or international law... they realize that Congress has a veto-proof majority in favor of Israel, right? Don't get me wrong, I also think that Israel violated US and international law, but if Biden/Harris had tried to cut off the supply of weapons the most likely outcome would have been for Congress to override his decision and his veto, supply the weapons anyways, and destroy any leverage that the president may have had over the leaders of Israel.

Finally, the people who genuinely think that Trump's policy would be more positive for Gazans than Biden/Harris's... I mean, I have no idea how you reach this level of delusion. This is a man who openly declared that his policy was to "let Israel finish the job". This is a man who is appointing (as he promised during the campaign!) Evangelical Christians who believe in Israel's right to control the entirety of the Levant and expel or otherwise eliminate the "other" population to key positions. This is a man whose calls to "end the war", which were apparently taken as commitments to peace by some in this movement, were clearly calls to finish the genocide.

Yes, the father-in-law of one of his children is a Lebanese Christian and has been appointed to a minor advisory position and some of his surrogates definitely went to the Islamic communities of Midwest/rust-belt states and made promises to those communities that were at odds with what the candidate actually said, but it beggars belief to think that any reasonable person would believe such a thing. When someone tells you a candidate thinks one thing and the candidate themselves says they think another thing, one of those people is definitely lying and I think it's reasonable to say that the candidate probably has a better handle on what they actually think and, ultimately, will more likely be held to what they actually said.

And look, I get it, the pro-Palestinian movement was/is desperate, tens of thousands have died already and millions more are still in mortal danger, but retreating into fantasies and delusions is only going to make a bad situation even worse. Biden/Harris may not have been making a particularly public push for peace, but Trump is going to stop even the behind-the-scenes pressure that was happening. Biden/Harris may not have called for a ban on weapons transfers to Israel, but Trump will push for more weapons. Harris DID publicly and repeatedly call for a cease-fire, Trump will not.

Ultimately, though, the reason why Harris didn't do what they demanded is that (a) her opponent was (much) more extreme but also (b) the American public is overwhelmingly pro-Israel. Yes, Americans have approved of Israel's conduct in this conflict less than in previous conflicts, but the amount of Americans saying Israel is taking the right approach or even hasn't gone far enough is still roughly equal to the number saying it's gone too far. Yes, Americans overwhelmingly don't have faith in Netanyahu and are concerned about the war expanding, but only about a quarter of Americans want the US to take a major role in diplomacy and two-thirds see a last peace as unlikely. No matter how much pressure small groups brought to bear, they were never going to force Harris to take positions that were so far outside the mainstream of American politics.

Unfortunately, the pro-Palestinian movement was trying to fight against decades and hundreds of billions of dollars worth of pro-Israeli influence on public opinion in the space of only a few months; frankly the level of success they've had is amazing. Equally unfortunately, though, the inability to change American politics in such a short time has made them retreat to magical thinking which will ultimately hurt the people they are trying to help.

This is an object lesson in effective activism here, people. Pressure is most effective when it's directed at someone you support and sustained over a long time. Note that "someone you support" part in there, you'll be much more effective at influencing someone's policy AFTER you vote for them than before. In fact, the most effective way of pursuing activism is to get sympathetic politicians into office and then push them to go further in your direction by offering even greater support if they do.

Voting against your own interests is a quick path to irrelevance. Democratic strategists are not sitting around today wishing they'd gone further in opposing Israeli actions, they're writing off Arab-Americans as a voting group that they need to focus appeals on and strategizing to appeal to other groups instead, and Republican strategists have figured out they can get Arab-American votes (or at least get them to sit out the election) without having to give them anything at all. Meanwhile, Gazans will pay the price as Netanyahu continues a campaign that can only be referred to as genocide while also instigating conflict after conflict in the greater region, all with the full support and even encouragement of the US administration.

Normally this is the point where I'd say of Trump voters that they deserve to get what he's going to bring them, but ultimately it won't be them that are directly hurt by Trump's actions, it will be the people of Gaza and the broader Middle East. Given that I can't wish that upon an innocent population but that I have very little if any ability to stop what is coming, I hope that, at least, those who voted for Trump out of frustration with Harris/Democrats are able to pause, take a deep breath, and study how American politics actually works.

Arab-Americans are a fast-growing group in the United States, and particularly so in key swing states. They deserve to have their ideas and policy preferences reflected in American politics and heard in the national debate. Hopefully, though, they can figure out how to wield their influence effectively before those who want to silence their views are able to sideline them completely.

Anyways, if you're interested in the piece that got me thinking about this, here you go. Those three delusions at the beginning aren't exaggerations by the way, they're actual statements quoted in the piece from leaders of the larger movement.

[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.

[thebrightestwitchofherage]

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

[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.

[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?

[head-post]

After Gaza truce, international community must keep pressure on Israel, Palestinian PM says

The international community will have to keep up the pressure on Israel after a ceasefire in Gaza, the Palestinian prime minister says.

Negotiators in Doha are trying to broker a ceasefire agreement in the Gaza Strip after 15 months of war between Israel and Hamas that has left tens of thousands dead.

The international community will have to keep up pressure on Israel to agree to a Palestinian state after a truce in the Gaza Strip deemed inevitable, Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammed Mustafa said on Wednesday.

Mustafa said ahead of a meeting in Oslo on a two-state solution, Israeli and Palestinian, in the Middle East:

“The truce we are talking about (…) is mainly due to international pressure. It shows that the pressure is bearing fruit.”

Israel “must realise what is just and what is unjust, and that the veto on peace and a Palestinian state will no longer be accepted or tolerated,” he added, speaking to the press.

The Palestinian prime minister made the remarks on the sidelines of the third meeting of the “International Alliance for the Two-State Solution,” which is attended by representatives of some 80 states and organisations.

Negotiations on a ceasefire agreement “in the final stages”

At the same time, negotiators in Doha are trying to finalise a ceasefire agreement in Gaza after 15 months of war between Israel and Hamas that has killed tens of thousands of people in the Palestinian territory. Qatar, which is the main mediating country along with the United States and Egypt, said the talks were “at the final stage” and “major issues” had been resolved, but did not specify which ones.

On Wednesday, the Kremlin said it was “cautiously optimistic” about a truce in Gaza, which has been portrayed as inevitable, deeming a cessation of hostilities “extremely necessary” amid a “humanitarian catastrophe.”

“A ceasefire and a truce are extremely necessary for the people who remain in Gaza and who are experiencing these absolutely inhuman difficulties and need a ceasefire, all possible forms of humanitarian aid,” Russian presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters.

Finally, a spokesman for Palestinian Islamic Jihad told AFP on Wednesday that a delegation from its movement had travelled to Qatar to take part in discussions with other Palestinian groups on prisoners to be released in the event of a truce in Gaza.

“A delegation of leading members of the Islamic Jihad movement arrived in Doha on Tuesday night to take part in the final negotiations on a ceasefire agreement in Gaza,” a spokesman for the armed group, which is allied with Hamas, said.

Read more HERE

[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.