#israelis for the most part see no problem with what's happening or they view it as a necessary evil

[thawragiya]

Another friendly reminder that Hamas only carried out oct7 to free the thousands of palestinians held hostage in Israeli prisons, and even though we've always had human rights organizations attest to the abuse taking place inside, we now have even more undeniable proof to the fact that those prisons are nothing more than torture facilities.

Do remember this did not start on October 6th/7th that was a retaliatory attack after 74 YEARS of genocide. this has absolutely been the deadliest year but it is not the first year of genocide or occupation by any means and that attack never would’ve happened if it weren’t for nearly a century of occupation and genocide

[meayefet]

Here's another thing I feel like we need to talk about regarding the current war between Israel and Hamas. Minor as it may be, I've been losing my mind over this.

As a person who grew up in the early 2010s, I grew up mostly on the internet and fandom culture, and have written quite a lot of fanficition in my early teens.

Something I've realized this past week is that people are seeing Palestine as a fandom. And not only does it belittle the actual problem, it dehumanizes Palestinians and Israelis alike and allows the rewriting of facts and truths as if it were an AU fanfic.

After realizing that I jokingly told a friend that I wouldn't be surprised to see RPF about the events of October 7th. I had in mind something like slash fiction of Hamas members, but today I found out people are writing fanfiction about A HOSTAGE AND HER CAPTOR.

I also found out it didn't happen in a vaccum - apparently tiktok is exploding with this stuff, saying Maya Regev - the hostage in question - had "left her heart in Gaza", because she smiled and said "shukran, bye" to her captors.

In case you have forgotten - Maya Regev was SHOT IN THE LEG AND TAKEN HOSTAGE INTO GAZA along with her brother, who was released FOUR DAYS AFTER HER. She was released with a shattered leg and without her brother - but if she smiled, her captors must have treated her so well, amirite? (Even though there are already plenty of horror stories from Hamas captivity, and children came back pale and whispering with their heads full of lice.)

Even in the early 2010s there was a debate whether RPF is legit or not (and at 26 I can safely say it's a no from me), but in this case it's even worse. These are not public figures we are talking about. This isn't One Direction or The Beatles. The Hamas terrorists are, well, terrorists, and Maya Regev is a private person made public because she was TAKEN HOSTAGE INTO GAZA. Writing a FANFIC about actual people who were actually injured during October 7th is beyond sickening, and it's probably the most immoral thing you can do on social media for the Palestinian cause (and if you guys claim to be on the side of morality you might want to be consistent).

Another thing that's driving me crazy is the difference between Israelis and Non-Israelis who grew up on the same things at the same time. my friends and I learned a lot about justice, critical thinking, and the power of art and creativity on the internet. I met a lot of my online friends in socialist youth movements and rallies, and many of them later became my classmates in Bezalel - BECAUSE we applied what we had learned into our adult life.

Non Israelis who grew up on the same platforms as I did who took part in the same fandoms, read the same fanfiction works, learned the same truths of social justice and the power of art- are now viewing the conflict as a fandom. You're either a fan or you're wrong - there is no middle. No room for critical thinking, for "Palestinians have every right to self-determination and an independent state BUT Hamas who actively prevents them said rights has comitted crimes against humanity on 7.10 and must be held accountable", or for "the occupation must end BUT the Jewish people are indigenous to the region" - there is only room for "by all means" and "from the river to the sea". It doesn't matter if they don't know which river and what sea - because if the conflict is a fandom, then they can write an AU to deal with every truth that doesn't settle with their narrative, and rewrite reality to fit their next fanfic.

[opencommunion]

since zionists want to act obtuse about why we're criticizing a superbowl ad, here's an explanation from before the ad even aired. it was openly designed to act as pro-genocide propaganda. fighting antisemitism is a worthy goal but that's not what's happening here:

"The New England Patriots’ 81-year-old owner, Robert Kraft, writes seven-digit checks to the right-wing Israeli lobbying machine AIPAC, but his personal, political, and financial ties to Israel run deeper than the occasional donation. The multibillionaire married his late wife, Myra, in Israel in 1963 when Kraft, then 22, was older than the nation itself. Together they set up numerous business, athletic, and charitable ties to Israel, a record of which is proudly proclaimed on the Kraft company website. In particular, the Kraft Group boasts of its 'Touchdown in Israel' program, where NFL players are given free, highly organized vacations to see 'the holy land' and come back to spread the word about 'the only democracy in the Middle East.' (Not every NFL player has chosen to take part.) Kraft also attends fundraisers for the Israel Defense Forces, currently—and in open view of the world—committing war crimes in Gaza."

Now, as Israel wages war against the civilians of Gaza—more than 25,000 Palestinian have been killed with at least 10,000 of them children—Kraft is again flexing his financial and political muscles in order to defend the indefensible. His Foundation to Combat Antisemitism (FCAS) will be spending an estimated $7 million to buy a Super Bowl ad titled 'Stop Jewish Hate' that will be seen by well over 100 million people. Under Kraft’s direction, the ad’s goal is to create a propaganda campaign to counter the reports and images from Gaza that young people are consuming on social media. 

... The content of the Super Bowl ad is not yet known, but FCAS has afforded Kraft the opportunity to make the rounds on cable news saying things like, 'It’s horrible to me that a group like Hamas can be respected and people in the United States of America can be carrying flags or supporting them.'

This is Kraft enacting the mission of FCAS: fostering disinformation. He is far from subtle: A Palestinian flag becomes a 'Hamas flag,' and people like the hundreds of thousands who took to the streets of Washington, D.C., last month to call for a cease-fire and end the violence are expressions of the 'rise in antisemitism.' Without a sense of irony or the horrors happening on the ground in Gaza, Kraft says he is giving $100 million of his own money to FCAS, because 'hate leads to violence.'

Let’s be clear: What Kraft is doing politically and what he will be using the Super Bowl as a platform to do is dangerous. He appears to think any criticism of Israel is inherently antisemitic. For Kraft, it is Jews like myself, rabbis, and Holocaust survivors calling for a cease-fire and a Free Palestine that are part of the problem. Kraft seems to think that opposition to Israel, the IDF, and the AIPAC agenda is antisemitism.

... Right-wing Christian nationalists, with their belief in a Jewish state existing alongside their conviction that Jews are going to Hell, are welcome in Netanyahu’s Israel and Kraft’s coalition. Left-wing anti-Zionist Jews are not. The greatest foghorn of this evangelical right-wing 'love Israel, hate Jews' perspective is, of course, Donald Trump. Kraft, while speaking of being troubled by events like the Charlottesville Nazi march and the right-wing massacre at the Tree of Life synagogue, counts Donald Trump as a close friend and even donated $1 million to his presidential inauguration.

No one who provides cover for the most powerful, public antisemite in the history of US politics should ever be taken seriously on how to best fight antisemitism. No one who funds AIPAC and the IDF and opposes a cease-fire amid the carnage should be allowed a commercial platform at the Super Bowl. But given that the big game is always an orgy of militarism, blind patriotism, and big budget commercials that lie through their teeth, perhaps that ad could not be more appropriate. We can do better than Kraft’s perspective on how to fight antisemitism. Morally, we don’t have a choice."

[bisexualseraphim]

I gotta say, I am seriously fucking concerned with the amount of people here who seem to wholeheartedly believe that the correct answer to the genocide against Palestine is ANOTHER genocide except the other way around. Please stand back for 2 minutes and seriously think about whether you think it’s ever a helpful or just cause to advocate for the deaths of millions of people, especially when plenty of said people are Jews whose families fled there after barely surviving the Holocaust because hardly anywhere else would treat them like human beings or accept them at all since the antisemitism that allowed the Holocaust to happen was not solely in Germany and didn’t magically disappear after the war ended.

Look. The situation is simple when you boil it down to this: Israel is bombing and starving Palestinians like fish in a barrel and doesn’t want to allow aid to Gaza, which consists of a population of over 50% children. Israel allowed the Nakba and displacement of Palestinians for decades and tries to hide it from public view. This is genocide. The Israeli government is at fault for this. Israel holds the power here because they have the power to bomb and starve millions of people and force them out of their homes, and Palestine certainly does not. It’s an utterly horrific, inhumane thing to do with no excuses for it and it needs to stop. This is the simple part that is glaringly obvious for everyone to see and it’s almost laughable for anyone to deny it.

Okay. You’ve successfully identified the main problem and the “bad guy,” if you want to put it in childish simplistic terms. So the question now is: what next? Say Israel agrees to an immediate ceasefire. What do you, impassioned activist on the internet, propose should be done to solve this situation after that? What should be done to free the Israeli hostages? Do you think the UK and the US, two of the most powerful countries in the world who actively help Israel commit its atrocities against Palestine, will ever do anything to help the Palestinians once Israel loses its power, even if better governments are eventually elected? How should the Palestinian land be claimed back? Where should all the Israeli citizens go? Should they all be forced out to Europe and America, even if that isn’t where they originate from, where the already-rife antisemitism has spiked even further since October 7th and Jews who live thousands of miles from Israel and have nothing to do with Israel’s actions face horrific hate crimes every day? Do Israeli children deserve that? Who’s going to pay for their travel and accommodation? Or, should they all be allowed to stay there and live side by side with the Palestinians? Do you think most Palestinians would be happy to remain neighbours with the citizens of the country that has oppressed them so fiercely for over 75 years, even if said citizens didn’t partake in it or in fact opposed it? What about the 20% of Israeli citizens who are Arab or Palestinian? Do you hold the same opinion of foreign settlers in Israel as you do its citizens whom have made a home there for many generations? How do you discern between settlers and “real” Israelis? Do you see any difference between them at all? Why? And what should be done about Hamas, the group that openly calls for the genocide of all Jews around the world and commits war crimes against Israeli citizens? How much of the history behind Israel’s occupation of Palestine are you aware of? Do you think the British government should be held accountable for splitting Palestine in the first place? How would you go about that? Would it be fair to punish the British people for their government’s actions when British citizens didn’t vote for it? How does that compare to your view of Israel and its citizens, and why?

I am absolutely NOT asking trick questions here or trying to “gotcha!” anyone. I am asking these questions precisely BECAUSE they are extremely difficult to answer, with several of them contradicting each other, and they are meant to get an emotional reaction out of you. I certainly don’t know what the “correct” answers to most of those questions are, and that’s exactly my point: there is no simple answer to a problem that has been going on for decades with such a wide, complex history. Historians and political experts who know all the facts and have studied this shit for years don’t know the answer and it’s honestly insulting to all the people suffering to log on every day and see so many people go “actually 😌 I, a random 20-30 something year old on the internet who isn’t even touched by what’s happening in Palestine, have figured it out before everyone else! Just delete an entire country and all its citizens off the map 😊 This is a moral thing to suggest! And if you disagree with me you’re promoting Zionism/terrorism 😘” There are no simple answers and if you think there is one — and especially if you think that answer is to kick citizens out of the country their family has lived in for generations — then you are both wilfully ignorant and evidently fuelled more by hatred than an actual desire for peace and an end to death and oppression and I don’t believe there is a crumb of sincerity in your activism.

Am I naive enough to think that fighting against oppression and occupation is always going to be peaceful? Obviously not. But you’ve got to think about where and when said violence is actually going to be beneficial, and where and when it’s violence purely for the sake of violence, which is NEVER justified. You can’t advocate for human rights and then turn around and say “oh, but not for you.” EVERYONE deserves food and water. EVERYONE deserves shelter. EVERYONE deserves to receive treatment for sickness or injury. NOBODY deserves cruel and unusual punishment or torture. And EVERYONE deserves to be alive. Those are essential human rights that should never, ever be denied wherever it is possible to give them, and disagreeing with that reflects extremely poorly on you and your principles. Think about what narrative you are pushing when you claim an entire people “deserves” bad things. The constant dehumanisation I see happening in online activism (and far too often in real life too) is actually terrifying and if you want to do some real good in the world, I need everyone reading this to examine their potential internal prejudices, even the ones you don’t think you have, and think about who exactly you’re helping when you express thoughts that perpetuate them, and who you may be harming in the process.

Anyway, now that I’ve gotten that out of the way…

Here are some useful resources if you want to make a difference and help people:

Standing Together (an Israeli movement advocating for ceasefire and peace between Israelis and Palestinians)

Zochrot (an Instagram page that seeks to educate the public about the Nakba)

Parents’ Circle (an organisation run by relatives of Israelis and Palestinians killed in the conflict who advocate for peace)

Operation Olive Branch (a Google Doc of Palestinian families seeking evacuation)

Mesarvot Network (an Instagram page run by young Israelis seeking to refuse the IDF draft and end military violence committed by both Hamas and the IDF)

Other Gaza aid organisations to donate to

[eretzyisrael]

by Aaron Bandler

DeLuca’s thoughts on the allegations that Israel and her defenders are “pinkwashing”? “Pinkwashing has got to be one of the stupidest things that I’ve ever heard … I grew up in Israel. In the ‘90s, I fought for gay rights. I marched in the first Pride parade,” he said. “When people tell me I’m just pinkwashing something — meaning that I’m talking about the successes of my community as a smokescreen as to not talk about what’s happening in Gaza or the West Bank — that is one of the most ridiculous homophobic and antisemitic things. What I did, the [fights] that I fought, were not so that I had to hide what was happening… in Gaza or the West Bank, I was doing it because that’s the right thing to do and I wanted to fight for my rights. So pinkwashing, in a word, is bulls—.”

The pro-Israel influencer says that he welcomes anti-Israel protesters who come to his speaking events on campuses, “because those are the people that I want to hear, and I want to try to change their mind. Or at least plant a seed so that they think, ‘wait, I heard a different side of it. I might be wrong, let me research a little bit more.’”

DeLuca believes that antisemitism is “much worse” in Canada than it is in the United States. “Here I find, states have a little more power vs. the federal government. In Canada, it’s very much our federal government [that] is the problem,” he opined, citing “our immigration laws allowing the protests to be as antisemitic as they are … Because we have an election coming up next year … there are a lot of people pandering to a demographic of a community that would rather see me dead, and they’re doing nothing about it,” DeLuca said.

DeLuca also pointed out that unlike the United States, Canada has hate speech laws, but they haven’t been enforced against antisemitism since Oct. 7, as there are people walking around with swastikas and saying things like “Heil Hitler.” “Nothing is ever done about it,” DeLuca lamented.

DeLuca has visited the site of the Nova music festival as well as the southern communities that were attacked by Hamas on Oct. 7. Visiting the Nova site was particularly difficult for him because “growing up, that was me. I was one of those kids that was in those forest parties every weekend … everybody there [at the Nova festival] was so young. Everybody there was a kid. Everybody there was literally starting their lives out. They were literally in the army or just after the army, and had their entire life ahead of them. And knowing that these hang gliders came over and people saw them and thought it was part of the festival … to be gunned down like that, literally sitting ducks, that was probably the most difficult thing for me.”

Prior to Oct. 7, DeLuca was “scared for my country because it was so divided.” But after Oct. 7, the Jewish state flipped “into a country that was united. And that’s I think the secret of Israel … we are very different, we are multicultural, we are multifaceted, we have different ideas, we have returned from all parts of the world. But if you push us, we’re one unit.”

As for the communities that were attacked, DeLuca visited one three weeks after Oct. 7 and recalled a particularly pungent smell. A doctor there told him that it was “the calcification of bone fragments that had been blown into the wall. They couldn’t even get them out of the wall,” DeLuca said, adding “I’ve been to Europe. I’ve seen the camps. The camps are nothing compared to what I saw the three weeks after.”

People in Israel, he said, want the war to end so they can return to their homes in the north and in the south. “We need to a) get rid of Hamas… b) bring our hostages back… and finally hopefully we see in Gaza a government that is at least, even if they don’t love Israel, tolerates the fact that we’re there,” DeLuca said.

But “Israel is coming back to what it was” prior to Oct. 7. “If you are in Tel Aviv, you would never know that there is anything happening,” DeLuca said. For a while after Oct. 7, Tel Aviv was “like a ghost town,” but now “it’s back to itself,” he added.

[matan4il]

A part of me is terrified of what will it take for most of these "anti-zionists" to realize that there has been a large rise of antisemitism, specifically in the left.

Will it be another mass shooting at a synagogue, but this time done by an anti-zionist college student? Will it be another October 7th? Or even worse?

Idk what it will take for these people to realize they're being blatantly antisemitic, evidence won't work, and I doubt every single person here can get a check from reality.

Hi Nonnie!

I'm not sure there is anything that will make them recognize this left wing antisemitism, but more importantly, I don't think anything can make them care about it. Take the Holocaust, did the Nazis need its full scale to be published, to realize that Jew hatred was on the rise in Europe at the time? No, they knew. They just didn't care. It wasn't a problem. If anything, it was a good thing.

The anti-Israel crowd has cast Jews as the ultimate evil in their world view (powerful, rich, capitalist, white, colonizers, oppressors, representatives of the west), so at this point, antisemitism doesn't bother them (except they will still call it out when it comes from white supremacists, and they think this "proves" they're not antisemitic). It's not a problem to them, it's the "right stance" against oppressors. That's why they can look at Oct 7 and justify it, dismiss its horrors, or (when called out on the double standards they're employing to do the former) deny they even happened. And it makes them feel good, they think they're on the right side of history, and that this proves their moral superiority (just like the Nazis' antisemitism boosted their sense of racial superiority).

Oct 7 was... as extreme as I hope we'll ever see the Israeli-Arab conflict get. It was the single bloodiest day for Jews since the Holocaust, but also the single bloodiest day in the conflict. I went back and forth over every event in the conflict, and I can't find a single day that was as bloody as this, not on the Israeli side, and not on the other side. And the anti-Israeli crowd still don't care, showing it's not really about human life to them, or they would.

If Oct 7 didn't get to them, nothing done to the Jews ever would. Maybe if they'd end up being victimized by this same sort of hatred and violence, maybe that would change their POV, though I still wouldn't wish that on ANYONE, and I suspect some would be able even then to employ the kind of mental gymnastics that explain why what was done to the Jews was just, while what was done to them was wrong.

And in the context of the rise in antisemitism globally, outside of Israel, if they don't feel any symapthy upon seeing the vids of Jewish students having to barricade themselves inside a uni library for almost an hour, while an angry mob bangs on the doors, chants "From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free," and the Jewish kids have to wait for the police to get them out safely, or upon learning about the homicide of a 69 years old Jewish man just because he was out demonstrating, or care about the countless vids with testimonies from Jews the world over talking about how scared they are, or stop to wonder why are there swastikas at anti-Israel rallies, then these people are too far gone. They just don't care about Jews.

What I think matters is to relentlessly call them out on their antisemitism, to make sure they never forget they're vilifying Jews (and the Jewish state), and treating Jews with complete indifference when it comes to Jewish rights, safety and lives. I believe we need to make it socially unacceptable to treat Jews this way under the guise of being anti-Israeli, just like it is socially unacceptable to say they're gonna go "death con 3 on the Jews." And I think it matters that we keep talking to the people who aren't brainwashed, who do care about Palestinians lives, care about those for real (not just as a tool to attack Jews), and at the same time they care about human lives for real, so they're capable of feeling real empathy for Jews. It matters that we remind them, that true compassion takes both sides into account, and advocates for what is best for both in this conflict. And that this IS a complex conflict, one in which there are no clear cut villains, and no easy solutions, but we have to keep striving to make it better even when it's hard.

I'm doing my best. The more of us do this, the more hope there is.

Thank you for this ask, I hope my reply somewhat helps! Have a good day and take care! xoxox

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

[rose-in-a-fisted-glove]

Hi it’s the SU anon here I’m very sorry for how much I upset you, and I seriously wanted to piece tgt what I’m missing from the Jewish viewpoint so I appreciate u still being open to talking to me despite the ignorance. Also disclaimer I’m born and raised in Malaysia so I’ve not met an actual Jew in person until very recently in uni, so all I know is from the messy pile on the internet and I do genuinely learn from ur posts when I see them.

From what I see on ur blog u do show quite a lot of sympathy to the all the cruelty happening in Gaza, but don’t tolerate this being used as an excuse to target Israel/Jewish ppl. I do understand that the whole concept of pushing for an Israel/jewish ethnostate is very much entwined with the history of Jewish culture and the antisemitism endured through different times, so I think this is the part where I made the most ignorant statement on? After rereading what I wrote it might also have sounded like all Jews hold extremely reactionary views towards the word “ceasefire”? Pls do point out more of what upset u, I take full responsibility for what I said and pls stop this convo at any point if I end up offending u more.

Recognizing that you don't know something is the first step towards fixing it. It's good that you thought on your previous ask and tried to research it! But you're missing an awful lot so let's start from the top.

(As a reminder and so others can seee, here's the original ask)

"Hi, this a question abt ur opinion on what’s happening in Gaza just bc you’re one of my favourite blogs that goes deep into Jewish culture/issues. If at any point this question becomes annoying pls ignore.

Anyways so in my college SU meeting recently someone sent in a motion to make an official statement to condemn the war and call for immediate and permanent ceasefire + provide more support to the Jewish and Muslim/Arab students affected by increased hate in the community as well. This sparked a debate among those in attendance and of course there’s a few very pro-Israel voices that insists that a ceasefire will cause Israel to lose all ability to defend itself as well as many pro-Palestine arguments. The motion ended up discarded bc of procedural reasons but as someone who has mostly held a free Palestine view so far and has been hoping for a more inclusive Israel in the future, I don’t understand why stopping a war hurting both sides is taken as an Israel must disappear take by many. I always just accepted it as it’s probably got a lot more antisemitic undertone when it’s a Jew that hears it, but I really wanna hear ur take as well bc the debate I witnessed brought up very disturbing points that I can’t stop thinking about. Hope this didn’t end up sounding disrespectful and thanks for always sharing important Jewish viewpoints without undermining other social issues!"

First problem comes right with the opening sentence; "Hi, this a question abt ur opinion on what’s happening in Gaza just bc you’re one of my favourite blogs that goes deep into Jewish culture/issues."

Going to random Jews who do not post about the conflict and asking for their "stance" on it is part of a series of antisemitic loyalty tests and is extremely rude on top of it. Furthermore, speaking on Jewish cultures and issues and antisemitism is not the same as being experienced or knowledgeable on international conflicts.

And then your next paragraphs are of course riddled with anti-Israeli biases and examples that you've been listening to/reading propaganda uncritically, such as "wanting a more inclusive Israel" and in your more recent ask saying things like "I do understand that the whole concept of pushing for an Israel/jewish ethnostate is very much entwined with the history of Jewish culture and the antisemitism endured through different times". So you clearly have a basic lack of knowledge about both Israel and the conflict in general along with Zionism itself.

But, again, that's not an area I talk about much. If any of the folks who do talk about it, see this and want to go into it, please do! Just to repeat here, you shouldn't have been asking me in the first place.

Then, this part here, showed me that you have a history of dismissing antisemitism as Jews being overly sensitive "I always just accepted it as it’s probably got a lot more antisemitic undertone when it’s a Jew that hears it." And then that was compounded by your closing insult, "thanks for always sharing important Jewish viewpoints without undermining other social issues!"

And that closing insult told me that I had woefully failed in sharing any information about antisemitism at all. "Sharing important Jewish viewpoints without undermining other social issues". Jewish "viewpoints" and antisemitism are just as important as any other sort of bias. Pointing out antisemitism and sharing stories about antisemitism does not, and can not, undermine other social issues. It is not lesser. Honestly, I'm still kind of livid over that shot.

[jewreallythinkthat]

I think I've worked out part of my issue with a lot of the antisemitism from the performative allyship for Palestinians and that is the disingenuous patronising way these people will talk about October 7th.

This isn't about those who deny it, it's about the people who say "of course I condemn October 7th..." And then try and change the subject because that way they can fully avoid actually acknowledging the level of trauma that was caused to Israelis, and the worldwide Jewish community, that day. It allows them to say to themselves "I am a good person" because they have acknowledged that this happened and now they can say whatever they want, no matter how bigoted, or simply untrue, safe in the knowledge that they can point to this one line and shut down any discussion about the actual details of the atrocities which are still coming to light.

To borrow a phrase so many people like to use to justify the butchering of innocent civilians in Israel, what is happening in Gaza "did not happen in a vacuum". That is not to say that what's happening is acceptable, but it is unbelievably important to preface any discussion about the situation as a whole with the fact that there was a actual caesefire in place on October 6th which was broken by Hamas in the most vile, horrific ways that wouldn't even make it into a horror film because it is unfathomably awful.

To acknowledge the events of October 7th, you MUST talk about the grizzly details of what happened, you must be willing to engage with people who are still coming to grips with losing family, and friends and never feeling safe again because all they have seen since is unbridled glee at the thought of their death. Frankly, I'd never want anyone to be able to empathise with how I have felt as that would mean that have actually experienced the fear that someone will actually kill you because you see people hunting you down in broad daylight because I wouldn't wish this on my worst enemy.

To flippantly say "of course that was awful, but anyway now I want to talk exclusively about the other side..." When someone Is trying to discuss October 7th itself is just trying to shut up Jews, Israelis, and anyone else who is trying to actually have a productive conversation.

What is happening in Gaza at the moment is a catastrophe and an horrific loss of life; an event which will leave lasting scars of trauma for generations. This doesn't mean it was unprovoked. And saying it wasn't unprovoked is also not saying that it is deserved. This is the fallacy of the argument. Multiple thing can be, and are true. If you only want to consider one, without the others, you are deliberately changing the situation and spreading misinformation.

The whole situation, and in fact the entire history of the middle east is one of the most complicated around the planet. But you cannot pick and choose where to count from just to make your argument work. If you think the only way to engage with people with different opinions to to infantilise, patrinise, and belittle, then you are not doing anything to help anyone. You are cementing yourself as a narrowminded fool with no ability to think for yourself.

If you genuinly think someone else's human rights should be taken away because of something they have done, they why shouldn't yours? It's a slippery slope.

If your opinions are not actually productive and you only get your news from one source, you are genuinely part of the problem. This is not meant to be a call out, it's a plea to actually do genuine research and read what people who disagree with you say with an open mind. You do not have to agree with them, but you have a duty to at least understand other people's point of view if you think you're important enough to be involved in the discussion - especially if it doesn't affect you personally in any way, shape or form.

[beardedmrbean]

The surge of open hatred of Jews on college campuses is unprecedented in modern American life. We saw it outside universities in the 1930s, when it was openly preached by Detroit’s Father Coughlin and published by Henry Ford. We saw it from the KKK during the civil rights revolution of the 1950s and 1960s. The Klan targeted Jews, as a marginal group, as allies of black equality, and as vehicles to build solidarity in their target audience: poor, angry, Christian whites.

At universities we saw a different kind of prejudice. That bigotry was exemplified by quiet restrictions on Jewish students and faculty, referred to as “Gentleman’s Agreements”. Those agreements excluded Jews from fraternities and sororities at most schools. Harvard began the practise and stated their goal openly, while others followed in secret. This practice changed only when it was prohibited by civil rights laws.

These practices were obviously prejudiced, but they were a far cry from the open hatred, intimidation, and speech suppression we now see on campus. Some of that is an old mask stripped away, some is an increase in underlying hatred, and some is a collapse of any restraints on its public expression. The old mask was emblazoned with the coda, “We don’t hate Jews. We don’t hate Israel. We just oppose Israeli policies and support Palestinian rights.”

Well, if recent demonstrations are any guide, it turns out they do hate Israel. They want to see it wiped off the map. That’s the meaning of their constant chant, “From the river to the sea.” A Palestinian state that occupies all that territory between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean would extinguish Israel. That’s their “final solution” for the Jewish state.

Chilling as that goal is, the activists don’t stop there. They extend their hatred to all Jews, and they say so openly in campus meetings and demonstrations. That is led by extremist Muslims, who are part of the dominant coalition on campus. But it is embraced by their political allies. More on that coalition in a moment.

Decent Americans know something has gone badly wrong at our universities. This wider public recognises, quite accurately, that the attacks on Jews are only the latest, most visible examples of a more pervasive problem: the rise of intolerant, illiberal ideology on the far-Left. That has always been a problem on the far-Right, but they were never major players on campus or in elite media. The Left is.

Watching these latest instances of anti-Semitic words and violent demonstrations, average Americans want to know why it is happening and what can be done to reverse the damage. Parents and alumni have still more questions. Families want to know where their children should go to college, where they will be encouraged to grow and learn, not bullied for their views or their faith. Those questions aren’t limited to Jewish families. Most parents want their children to live and learn in a safe, tolerant atmosphere. They are deeply worried, and they are right.

Their anxiety is shared by many alumni. Until now, wealthy donors have been content to turn over millions, see their names on a building or professorship, and attend cocktail parties with the university president after football games. No more. Many are saying our leading universities are not worthy of their support. They want to oust the leaders who encouraged this decline, stood silent as it grew worse, and then were surprised – and speechless – when it broke out into the open.

It won’t be easy to enact change – university leadership is self-perpetuating and campus bureaucracy is deeply entrenched. At Yale, for example, when alumni wanted a few dissonant voices on the board, the existing members changed the rules so that only they could nominate new members.

These disturbing events on campus are the bitter fruits of trends that have been developing for years. A few concerned faculty tried, in vain, to halt this ideological frenzy and moral collapse before it sank their institutions. They failed. The number of bureaucrats employed has ballooned and now approaches the number of students on campus. Over these students, they exert enormous control. 

Students themselves have contributed mightily to this illiberal, intolerant atmosphere. That culture now begins in elite high schools and has seeped down to middle schools. Surveys now show that only about half of college students support free speech. Many tell survey researchers it is perfectly fine to shout down opposing views. A non-trivial minority think it is okay to use violence against people with different views. They never answer the hard question, “who decides?” 

It is hardly surprising that Jews are the targets. That has been true historically when illiberal ideologies gain political clout and look for scapegoats. That is exactly what is happening on American campuses today. It began with hatred of Israel, damning them as “settler colonisers” rather than a people associated with that land for three millennia. It quickly metastasised to vilify anyone who supported the Jewish state and then to Jews in general.

This movement is shaped by the dominant ideology, which divides the world into oppressors and victims. The oppressors are “privileged whites,” whose only hope of redemption is to accept their guilt and support the “oppressed” and “colonised” victims. The result, which dominates campus politics, is an angry, oppositional ideology grounded in identity politics.

It is easy to speculate how this fragile and at times nonsensical coalition might break upon contact with reality. True, you occasionally see students marching with signs like “Queer = Free Palestine.” That idea, to put it mildly, is not endorsed on the ground in Palestine or any majority-Muslim state. It shouldn’t take more than a moment’s reflection to realise that those activists would return home in boxes if they marched with that sign through Gaza. But it’s far easier to signal virtue by proclaiming their alliance with the “oppressed” and assuming it is reciprocated.

This dominant ideology and the coalition that supports it have undermined what should be the most basic values at our universities: free and open inquiry and a safe environment to express them. Those are essential for real learning, the creation of new knowledge, and human flourishing. The result is worse than a gloomy environment on campus. It is a hostile one for conservative students, pro-Israel students, Evangelicals, and others who dare to depart from the approved line. 

None of this will get better on its own. It will require a concerted movement of parents, alumni, and donors. They must demand systemic changes to restore sanity, safety, and free expression on campus. It won’t be easy: but action is long overdue. 

[martyrbat]

After being disgusted for two days from the tags, I'm reblogging this again to say it does not fucking matter if you personally think the Punisher would hate cops. It doesn't matter his history or lore—extremist have taken well-known, innocent symbols for decades and turnt it to hate symbols. From the runic alphabet, common memes (Pepe) and hand gestures (‘okay’ gesture), to—most famously—the swastika which still holds significance in Indian religions (Wikipedia, ADL). Extremists and fascists appropriate things all the time, it's what they do. It sucks and context is important, especially for appropriated culture symbols, but if you only care or are outraged this happens when its about something you personally like or are defensive over—you are part of the problem. You don't care that extremists do this, you care that it happened to something that relates to you. But that is a problem you need to work on privately instead of taking focus away from what this post should be about because, again, it doesn't matter if you think a character would hate cops.

The point of this post is that the Punisher logo has been commonly used by police and military while killing and terrorizing people for over 20 years and that a cop was wearing an extremist patch and isn't fired. He had to remove the patch but it doesn't change his mindset or views. I literally linked sources for that in the above addition to make it easier to educate yourself if you were unfamiliar with the logo's use—there's no reason why anyone should had reblogged this without reading them and talking about how the Punisher isn't originally a hate symbol. It has been, and still is, used as a hate symbol—rather you agree it should or shouldn't be. It doesn't matter a single bit if you think that character would disapprove of it—he's a fictional character. He doesn't exist, your focus shouldn't be on protecting his ‘legacy’ when seeing a cop wearing this. This is about people in power wearing hate symbols and not getting reprimanded and fired for it. This is about real life people that are in danger and being killed instead.

If you want to whine about comics or them misusing the Punisher logo, do it on a separate post instead of turning something so horrific into ‘fandom drama’ or discourse. Instead, take action in a way that helps:

Donate.

E-Sims for Gaza, Tumblr post guide (check tags for referral codes!)

UNRWA

Palestinian Children's Relief Fund

Google Drive sheet from Operation Olive Branch to directly help Palestinian's GoFundMe's.

Tumblr post with multiple donation links

Protest. There's emergency protests happening on more short notice (time is a privilege Palestinians aren't being given) AND ones set out so you can prepare. Look online in different spaces (from various social medias to university websites) and in person for local solidarity groups. If you can't find any, plan one! Some quick links:

USCPR (US based)

PSC (UK based)

Code Pink (international)

Tumblr post with a thread of (international) protests that has taken place for Rafah. While most have already taken place, they're a good way to find accounts that organize protests so you can be prepared for the next one.

Boycott. (Make sure to email and send a complaint that you are withholding your business due to their compliance in the genocide against Palestinians!)

BDS Movement offical boycott list

FOA article specifically about boycotting Israeli dates, especially for Ramadan.

Pressure. Put pressure the Vancouver police for not firing the cop and put pressure on your local government and congress—demand a ceasefire now and for the ongoing genocide to be ended. Your tax dollars are being used to fund a genocide and you should be furious over it.

VPD website. File a complaint AND be vocal online, they have links to their social medias. More voices means more attention, don't let them sweep it under the rug!

USCPR for US residents to call congress and demand a ceasefire

Ceasefire website, which has resources to find your congress or Canadian/UK MP's to email, fax, and call them!

Rep. Rashida Tlaib's two petitions: One to request Biden to suspend military aid to Israel, the other to prohibit members of Congress and their families from profiting from any company that works for the military.

YouCount for Canadians to find their local representatives & LeadNow campaign to call for a ceasefire. They also have one to stop supplying Isreal's military!

Tumblr masterpost! Lots of information in this one—including local campaigns and petitions, fax campaigns, letters to send, numbers to text and call, etc.

Educate. Be on the lookout for increases of hate crimes and familiarize yourself with hate symbols and dog whistles because ignorance is dangerous. Read about Palestinian culture and joy and history, and don't turn away and ignore their suffering. Be wary of propaganda and stay informed on the genocide and bombing of Palestine.

Al Jazeera (news)

MiddleEastEye (news)

Global Project Against Hate, ADL (Databank for different hate symbols)

North Gaza Updates, a Tumblr that shares many posts to Palestinian journalists and make it easy to find the accounts on Instagram. Wikipedia states that (as of January 30th, 2024) at least 85 journalists have been killed, 78 being Palestinian, 4 Israeli, and 3 Lebanese. (Link 1, link 2 for list of their names). CPJ states (most recently from 15 hours ago) that 88 have been murdered (link). Journalists and their families are targeted and face arrests, death, threats, and censorship constantly. The very least you can do is pay attention to what they're being murdered over.

Free ebooks: Versobooks, Poems from Palestine via The Baffler, Haymarket Books, Nakba and Survival. All those are free. There's also reading lists from decolonizepalestine, Versobooks, Haymarket Books, and multiple Tumblr and Twitter posts with different literature (including this one). If they're not free, they're low priced or easy to find online.

There's multiple archive sites, piracy sites, and places to find more resources. If you can't find something, dm me and I'll try to find it for you. There's also independent sites and sites made to honor the beautiful Palestinian culture—personally been recently admiring the tatreez patterns here! (they also have a lot of references if you would like to read more on Palestinian embroidery, and a history of it by handmadepalestine is here)

Community. Both online and in person—stand up against people using this as an excuse to be antisemitic or anti-Palestinian and be there for the people in your community. Don't trust cops, the police patch on their chest is a hate symbol enough, and watch each other's backs.

These links are barely a chip off the iceberg in how many things you can do that actually helps people instead. If you can't physically protest, you can campaign online and demand better from your congress. You can read and listen, you can make art, you can do commissions for proof of donation to one of many Palestinian charities. You have a voice, please please please use it for something useful instead of arguing over a fucking comic book character.

(taken from @/sarahofmagdalene on instagram.)

A NOTE TO THOSE WHO MAY BE PARTICIPATING IN PRO PALESTINE ACTIONS IN VANCOUVER.

Please, even if you don’t live in Vancouver, reblog to spread awareness. The canadian media isn’t covering the protests, let alone the hostility protesters face, so we can only rely on each other to get news like this around!

[nickyhemmick]

A Very Stressed American Jew here again,

Hi! Thank you for taking the time to respond to my ask and yes, I’m someone who loves hearing as many perspectives as possible so I’d love some sources from you. I also very much appreciate the fact you are being very careful to only reblog posts that are anti Israel, not antisemetic (which is frankly a breath of fresh air, the internet has been a bit exhaustingly full of both antisemitic & Islamaphobic content these past feel days as I bet you’ve seen)

I’ve also been to Israel on a Birthright trip. We met people who ( both Palestinian and Israeli) on various sides of the conflict and learned a ton about it, from both perspectives which I was lucky to have the opportunity to do. We even went a little into the Gaza Strip to talk to these people running a pro Palestine peace movement and it was so important to me hearing those stories.

I never said they were on equal footing militarily, they definitely are not, Israel definitely has that advantage. But you are incorrect about Israel always being the aggressor since 1948,they’ve defended themselves about as often as they’ve attacked. Isreal is a small country comparatively to the ones surrounding it, so it makes sense it defends itself heavily in case of an attack.

I 100% agree that there are too many people who are compliant with the mistreatment of many Palestinians! I’m not anti #freepalestine at all! I get why that is a thing. But I also stand with Israel( but that does not mean I condone every action they take. ) Overall I think the situation is extremely complicated and some sort of compromise should be reached.

It’s just been very frustrating to see so many people reblog things on a situation just bashing Israel because so many others are doing it. Especially when then don’t know what they are talking about or using big buzz words that they don’t know what they mean, or spreading misinformation. It’s been on both sides and has been very very draining. I just want peace and some sort of solution. It makes me extremely happy you know what you are talking about and can debate politely yet happily about it. The internet has been so ‘ either agree with me 100% or you a bad person’ about this so it’s refreshing to see you are not like that.

I’ve done a lot of research into it from as many perspectives as I can get my hands on.

Some extremest Israelis are hurting Palestinians

Some extremest Palestinians are hurting Israelis

Both sides are throwing rockets at each other and it’s terrifying.

Both sides claim the other side is brainwashed

There is so much biased propaganda out there on both ends it’s hard to know what is truly happening.

I know people living in Israel who have sent me videos they’ve taken of rockets flying over there heads and I’m so scared for them. I’m so scared for all the innocent people caught in the crossfire on both sides.

Thank you for a more nuanced response and I’d love some of your sources,

A Very Stressed American Jew

Hi anon, 

I wasn’t going to respond to this until after my math final tomorrow but I’ve spent the past two days thinking of your ask and the things I wish to articulate in my answer. 

I am going to start here: how can you say you support Israel but say you are also pro-free Palestine (as in, you said you are not anti free Palestine). In my opinion, these two ideas cannot coexist. Simply because, the entire establishment of Israel has been on violent, racist, colonial grounds. 

(Super long post under here guys)

You said you don’t support all Israel’s actions, and definitely, just because you support something doesn’t mean you can’t criticize it. However, in my opinion, if you do not support Israel’s actions against Palestinians there’s not much left to support? I admit this is a very biased view as I am Palestinian, but many things that people support about Israel have existed before its creation: as in, these are things and qualities that have existed in Judaism and are not due to “Israeli culture.” There is no Israeli culture. There’s Jewish culture--100%. But there is no Israeli culture, because Israel does not only steal Palestinian land, but Palestinian culture, too. Such as claiming Levant food is Israeli; hummus, ful, falafel, shawarma. I mentioned food from this article I know is culturally and traditionally of the Levant, and has been for centuries, it is not something that has come to culinary creation in the past 73 years. 

I do not think this is a complicated issue. I said that in the previous ask and I’ll say that again. Saying it is a complicated issue is trivializing the deaths of innocent Palestinians, the violent dispossession our ancestors endured, and the apartheid they live under. I hope if anything comes from this discussion it is you removing the “it’s a complicated issue” phrase from your vernacular. 

This is not complicated. A journalist reporting the death of martyrs only to discover that of them include two of his brothers is not complicated. The asymmetry of Israel vs Palestinian armed forces is not complicated, nor is the asymmetry in Israeli vs Palestinian suffering (which I will get to later). It is not complicated.  Destroying the graves of martyred Palestinians (or just in general, the graves of the dead) is not complicated. Little children being pulled from the rubble, children being forced to comfort one another as they are covered in the ashes of their decimated homes, attacking unarmed citizens in peaceful demonstrations (you can find videos before this attack where they were playing with kites and balloons), destroying an international media office and refusing to allow journalists to retrieve the work they are spending every waking hour documenting but claiming it was because it was a hide out for a “Hamas base,” fathers who are trying to cheer their frightened children up only to end up dead the next day, while many Israeli have the privilege and the option to go to hotel-like bomb shelters is not complicated. 

This brings me to my next point: the suffering of Palestinians cannot be compared to the inconvenience of Israeli’s. On one side, you have children who are happy to have saved their fish in the face of their homes and lives being decimated behind them to Israeli’s in Tel Aviv having to cut their beach day short to get to bomb shelters. You have mothers and fathers ready to set their lives down for their children to save them from bombs to Israeli’s enjoying their brunch only after making sure there are bomb shelters there. You have Palestinian children being murdered to blocking out the sound of sirens in the safety of your bomb shelters. (The first picture of the Palestinian child is not from footage of the recent problems). You have the baby lone survivor of a whole family recovered from rubble. His whole family, gone, before he ever had the chance to realize that he even exists, while Israeli’s decide to flee out of the country,(Translate the caption from Twitter, it checks out), or have to leave the shower due to sirens. Who is really suffering? 

I won’t sit here and pretend like the thought of rockets flying over my head, no matter which side I am on, is not terrifying. It is. It’s scary to just think about. But Israeli’s have protection beyond Palestinian’s, they have sirens to warn them (Israel does not always warn Palestinian building members that it is about to be bombed), they have the Iron Dome, they have simply the threat of nuclear power (which I am not saying Israel would use, but the simple fact they have it would make me feel a lot better if I were an Israeli citizen) and they have bomb shelters. What do Palestinians have? Hamas? That smuggles its weapons through the ocean? That only ever reacts to the action Israel instigates? And yet Gazans are branded terrorists and that it is their fault that they “elected” a terrorist organization that only was ever created due to no protection from any armed country? (There are so many links I want to add in this paragraph but it is simply impossible for me to add everything I want, a lot of what I’m referring to can either be found through a Google search, or you can stalk my Twitter account, all that I am posting now is about Palestine, and will include sources of things I cannot add in just this one post.) 

Look, I see myself in the genocide happening in Palestine right now. I see myself in this ten year-old girl. In this three year old girl. I see me and my family in videos of cars being attacked in Ramallah and Sheikh Jarrah (I cannot find the Ramallah video, should be somewhere on my Twitter), I see my father in the countless videos of fathers crying out for their children, of kissing the corpse of their loved ones (again, translate the Tweet, the man holding the body is saying “just one kiss”). I see my grandfather in videos like this (old footage). I see my younger brother, I see my grandmother, my mother, my aunts and uncles and cousins. I see myself and my life and my family were my father not lucky enough to get a scholarship to the UK and out of Palestine, were my maternal grandfather not been lucky enough to make it to a refugee camp and build a life in Jordan. I have an unbelievable amount of privilege to be born into the life I was born in to, in terms of I do not have the threat of bombs and violent dispossession around me, and I do not even live in the US. I have privilege and sheer luck that my parents were able to go to the US so that me and my brothers can be born, because now I have both the protection of the most powerful country in the world while at the same time being part of a people to have suffered so generously the past seventy-three years. 

On the other hand, you saying that Israel has “defended themselves about as often as they’ve attacked. Israel is a small country comparatively to the ones surrounding it, so it makes sense it defends itself heavily in case of an attack,” I offer you this question: why are they using military grade guns and stun grenades in mosques to “defend” themselves from rocks? And before you mention that Hamas hit Tel Aviv, I remind you that Hamas did that due to the violence in the Al-Aqsa mosque square and the attempted ethnic cleansing in Sheikh Jarrah. The violence didn’t begin with us; the violence was brought out of Palestinians in resistance to the generations of oppression we have endured and the attack on Palestinian Muslims during the holiest night of Ramadan. Hamas has since asked for a ceasefire multiple times and Israel is refusing. New reports say there is a possibility of a ceasefire in the coming days, but Israel could have decided this a long time ago and spared many lives. (Remember, no matter what resistance we make, Israel is the one in power).

Israel has been the aggressor since 1948. Just read up about the Nakba! 700k Palestinian families were dispossessed violently. The only reason Israel was established at all was because it simply declared it was now a country and the US and many other countries recognized it as such. (Of course, there are many other historical details here, like the British Mandate of Palestine, the Balfour Declaration, the Oslo Accords and many others. I am aware of them but these are for a different post all together). My paternal grandfather was a little younger than me when Israel as a state was created. The hostility that followed was due to this independent declaration being listened to over Palestinian voices. 

Here is a very, very simplified analogy, one that can also answer some people’s questions as to why Palestinians (not Arabs, we are Palestinian before we are Arab) did not like what happened in 1948 and why they refused a two-state solution (that Israel was never going to go through with anyway). (I am also aware other Arab nations got involved, and that is perhaps what you mean when you said they had to defend themselves, but my response to that would still be we didn't start it, that we only responded to it).

Let’s say you are a farmer. You have many fields of trees, ones you have taken shelter under from the sun since you were a child, or hid behind when you wanted to avoid your parents when you misbehaved. You have seen your trees grow from a seed, to a sprout, to a flower, to a large, beautiful tree with fruits the size of a fist. You pluck the fruits from one tree, and make a jam from it. I don’t know how to make jam but I know it takes a lot of energy. So, you make this jam and from it, produce a lovely, mouth-watering pie. Once it has cooled from the oven, you take it with you outside your balcony just so that you can admire the years, months, weeks and hours this one pie has taken to be created. Suddenly, a stranger walks past and yells to you, “That pie looks delicious, I want it!” And you, shocked at their boldness but ready to share, say, “I will give you a bite.” But the stranger says, “No! I do not want a bite or a slice or whatever you want to offer me, I want the pie!” And they grab it from you. You and the stranger start screaming at one another about who the pie is for, who is allowed to decide what happens to it, and who you can share it with. Then, another stranger comes by and says, “Why all the problems? Let’s cut the pie in half and the both of you can share it!” But why should you, who has spent years cultivating the fruit and grain inside this pie, share it? Why should you give up half of the 100% that you already owned? Of what you already had? So you disagree, and now a crowd has formed around you. “What’s the problem?” someone in the crowd calls. “They don’t want to share their pie!” another voice says. Then you become branded a selfish, mean bastard. Again, this is a super simplified analogy, so don’t take it too seriously, but I am trying to show you why Israel is the aggressor.

In addition, I do not know too much about the Birthright program, just that American Jewish people are sent to Israel, all expenses paid. I tried my best to find the Twitter thread but I read it so long ago, about an American Jewish person who went on their trip and they talked about the propaganda that they were exposed to on that trip. I can’t say for sure that it is true, because I haven’t been on it and never will, but that is the first thing I thought of when you mentioned your Birthright trip. Either way, I think it is still great you went and saw the country. However, I must ask you this: are the people you met ones you, yourself, sought out, or ones you were organized to meet?

Now, I haven’t been to Gaza, so I don’t know what you really saw or didn’t, but did you speak to Palestinians who lost their homes to airstrikes? Did you speak to siblings, parents or children of loved ones who had been lost beneath the rubble of buildings and towers? Outside of Gaza, did you speak to Palestinians that live in poor quarters? Ones who have been victims of an IDF soldier shooting them, or who have family members who have died from such attacks? Did they take you guys to Ramallah, to Nablus, to Beit-Imreen, to Jenin, to small villages in the West Bank, far away from Jerusalem and Tel Aviv? Did you speak to people there? Ask them their stories? Because if you did I have a very hard time believing you still think Israel is “defending” itself.

I’ve been to Jerusalem, many times, even Tel Aviv and Jaffa and Haifa. All the times I visited Dome of the Rock there were IDF soldiers with huge guns strapped to their person, standing menacingly outside the courtyard. For what? Genuinely, genuinely for what? It is nothing but an intimidation tactic. The same way we are not allowed in through the airport. If you could see the struggle some Palestinians actually go through just to get into Palestine, through the land border, you would be disgusted. I love Palestine, it is my ancestry land, it is my culture and tradition. But I always hated going to visit because I knew the way to getting there would be hell.

My father worked in Tel Aviv through the first Intifada. My maternal grandfather was forced out of his home in the Nakba and was forced to leave behind his belongings and the orange trees that have been in his family for generations. Hell, the town they lived in was destroyed! It doesn’t exist anymore except in the memories of my aunts and uncles, who never even saw it, but just heard of it from their father!

I’m not saying there aren’t Palestinians who are racist and anti-Semitic (though, tbh, I will direct you here for that) and who support Hamas in killing Israeli’s, but talking about how there are many “extremist” Palestinians who are hurting Israeli’s and in the next line say there are extremist Israeli’s who are hurting Palestinians is not correct. There are extremist Israeli’s killing, lynching, stealing the houses of Palestinians, and there are Palestinians who are fed up and fighting back. (I am not talking about Hamas vs the IDF here, I am talking about the citizens). I have not seen one reported death of an Israeli due to Palestinian violence (if you have, from a trusted source, send it to me), but I have seen countless of the other way around. I have seen images of charred little bodies, of a baby being dug out of the rubble, of a child’s body that had been so mutilated that you can literally see the insides of their body coming out. (I don’t know if it’s on my Twitter, I didn’t want to save that shit). If this was my country I would be absolutely ashamed of myself and my people and what they are doing in the name of my protection. So you have to forgive me, and forgive other Palestinians, who don’t give a fuck about Israeli’s having anxiety over rockets flying over their heads when we see these images. Where is the protection of our kids? Why does no one seem to mention them except when mentioning the poor, innocent ones in Israel? At least more than the majority of them have their parents to comfort and rock them. At least many of them will probably be saved of ever having to be beneath the rubble of a destroyed building, or digging in it, to hope to find the parts of their parents or siblings just so that they can bury them. Just the links from the start of my answer is enough to support what I am saying.

I have soooo much more I can say, like how Israel uses religion to distort the image of what’s going on (tbh, just check my Twitter for that: language is EVERYTHING), but you didn’t mention religion in any of this and so I won’t either. The only reason I decided to respond to you in such length was because you have been one of the few respectful anons in my inbox in the past few years of me being on here talking about Israel, so I appreciate that from you. 

As promised, some more sources: decolonizepalestine is a good place to start if you haven’t used it already, it has reading materials, myth busting, and more. Here is a map list of destroyed localities from pre-1948 until 2017, run by two anti-Zionist Israelis. Here and here are the articles I promised of a former IDF soldier-turned Palestinian activist, I read these two last year in June and remember coming out much more informed than before I read them. I suggest looking into the writer and his organization, which, if I remember correctly, collects accounts from previous IDF soldiers. I would suggest not to follow Israel and the IDF accounts on any platform, or any Israel times newspaper, simply because they will not tell you the truth. In fairness, you do not have to follow any Palestinian Authority accounts (which I am not even sure there are), but to follow on-ground Palestinians like Mohammed El-Kurd, who has been speaking out since he was 12 (he is now 22) and he is part of the families in Sheikh Jarrah. I have noticed that this and this account have been translating Arabic headlines and tweets for non-Arabic speakers, I have just started following this person but their bio says they are a Palestinian Jewish person so I am interested in their view of things. You can also follow Israeli’s on-ground and see their perspective on things, but I would also advise to compare the Palestinian and Israeli side of things from the people, and critically analyze the language used in each case. Also, this article references Jewish scholars opposed to the occupation (I have not looked into them myself but I plan to after my exams), and Norman Finklestein is another great Jewish scholar to look into if you haven’t. Twitter is better than Instagram and Facebook, so I would stick to getting live-info from there, Twitter does not censor Palestinian content as much as Insta and Facebook so you’re more likely to see things there.

I will end this by saying I personally do not see any other option for peace than to give Palestinians our land back. Whether we may be Muslim, Jewish or Christian, it has always been and will always be our land. I only hope to see it free in my lifetime. 

Free Palestine. 

[writingwithcolor]

Jewish woman who practices magic, in purgatory

@sav-sage asked:

I’m writing a character who is half Black and Israeli and the story is set in 2015 USA. The character’s name is Mia. She ends up going to a Purgatory-like world to save the Living world (aka Earth.) The existence of magic and people who use magic has been well documented but they are uncommon. Mia is one such person who uses magic. In this story, there are other Entities that are basically gods however, it’s kind of a coalition of a bunch of different beliefs/religions with all the different gods. Btw, there is an Entity that is similar to the Abrahamic god(s). 

Most of the general population and even magic users in the Living realm don’t know about what happens post death and only a select amount of people actually know, so the existence of religions are still going strong. Only Mia’s family and ancestors (who are also Jewish) really knew extensively what happens.

While Mia isn’t so big on practicing specific Jewish traditions and she was agnostic, she is still considered Israeli or Jewish and considers herself Jewish. My biggest conflict here comes in the form of the fact that I know Judaism and the practice of Magic is a bit iffy when combined in the real world. The only way I really justify it in my story is where magic isn’t necessarily tied to any Entity/god and also the Freeskys (Mia’s family name) were kind of blessed with a lot of their abilities, especially to enter the realms of the dead.

Would you guys consider it problematic for a Jewish person to be practicing magic that wasn’t directly given to them by Jehovah?

Ok, I have a lot of thoughts! In no particular order:

There is not a consistent concept of “the Abrahamic God.” Most Jewish people I know do not consider our God the same as the Christian God. Also, the term “Abrahamic Religion” like “Judeo-Christian” is very often used to exclude Muslims, and give a false sense of similarity between Judaism and Christianity. (We actually have way more in common in traditions, practice, and basic concepts with Muslim folks)

Knowing or not knowing what happens after death would have essentially zero impact on Judaism, which really doesn’t focus heavily on what happens after death, and instead emphasizes what happens in life. 

Jews don’t write out, or attempt to pronounce the Name of God, which is sometimes referred to as “the Unutterable Name.” It is specifically prohibited in the Talmud, I mean, we don’t even write it down needlessly, because just the written form has to be given respect and disposed of properly, which includes actual burial. It was only ever spoken by High Priests in the days of the Temple, and seeing it written to us is, perhaps unintentionally, pretty gross. 

The Jewish problem with magic (As far as it exists, we’ve covered before that there are different interpretations of that, and differing views) is not specifically related to the idea that some other entity might have given magical powers to a human being. Having their powers explicitly not come from another deity helps very minimally. 

You seem to be conflating Israeli/Jewish here, which is problematic. Not all Jewish people are Israelis (which is a nationality, not a culture or religion), and not all Israelis are Jewish (because, again, it’s a nationality). There’s kind of a lot written about that. Jewish people all over the world are often threatened, and insulted, for having an assumed, unproven prior loyalty to Israel. It has literally resulted in us being beaten, turned out of our homes, and murdered. 

You may mean well, I can’t possibly say, but I do feel very comfortable saying that you are not at all prepared to handle this character, or Jewish characters generally, in a sensitive, knowledgeable way.  

– Dierdra

I agree, there are a number of things about this that don’t really make sense. The idea of our G-d existing among other deities is the big one for me. There can’t be any other gods in a world where Judaism is in any way correct – that’s about as fundamental to our beliefs as you can get.

This part also bothered me: ‘Most of the general population and even magic users in the Living realm don’t know about what happens post death and only a select amount of people actually know, so the existence of religions are still going strong.’ So…religions keep going not because there’s truth or meaning in them, but because their followers are blissfully unaware of the real secrets of the universe? I feel like you added this clause to seem ‘respectful,’ but please ask yourself, would you feel respected if someone gave your beliefs that treatment?

–Shoshi

[eretzyisrael]

My Brush with Censorship

For the past seven years I’ve written a regular column for a newsletter that is distributed several times a year by the Jewish Federation in my home town in California. I write about what’s going on in Israel, explain our convoluted, even Byzantine, political system, and tell about my own experiences as a former American living in the Jewish state. Naturally my ideology comes through. How could it not?

So I recently wrote one which, in part, dealt with Israeli concerns about Iran, both the conventional military threat and the very real possibility of a nuclear one. I mentioned that I didn’t think that the negotiations now starting in Vienna were likely to improve the situation, and that a conflict was probably inevitable. Since it was almost Hanukah, I signed off with a line borrowed from a recent blog post. I wrote, “I want to take this opportunity to wish all my friends … a very happy Hanukah, and to remind them what it is all about: staying Jewish and defeating our enemies!”

When it was published, I saw that the last part of my final sentence had been left out. When I asked the editor about it, she told me that she had left it out because she “found it to be bellicose and was offended.”

I was at a loss on how to answer. What did she think had occurred so that the Temple needed to be rededicated? What might have happened to the Jewish people if their enemies had not been defeated? Could she not see the parallel between the dual threats of antisemitism and assimilation facing us today, and the dangers our people had to confront in the year 165 BCE? What part of staying Jewish and not being wiped out is offensive?

I sent her a long response. I mentioned the worldwide explosion of Jew-hatred in the past few years, and how it was closely tied to the extreme, irrational, and obsessive hatred of Israel that has permeated the discourse of the extreme and even the moderate Left in her country and in much of the rest of the world. I mentioned the real existential threat from Iran, both conventional and nuclear. I explained that while Israel is powerful, she is also exceedingly vulnerable because of her small size and population. I said that Israel could disappear in a week’s time, and that if that happened, the rest of the world’s Jewish population would stand alone, exposed to the bitter winds of antisemitism with no backup and no escape. It’s neither “bellicose” nor offensive to want to defend yourself.

I pointed to the growing social and economic instability in America, and noted that the Jews, as always, are caught in the middle, scapegoats for the extremists of both sides. If the exception from Jewish history that has been the US since 1945 suddenly reverts to “normal,” who will help American Jews? The imam with whom the local rabbi has engaged in “interfaith dialog?” The black community that admires Louis Farrakhan? The Evangelical Christians that they have consistently disdained and spurned?

Her answer didn’t relate to any of this. I don’t want to put words in her mouth, but I think that she does not believe that Israel is in any great danger, and that American Jewry has little to worry about, particularly from the Left. I think that she believes that if Israel would just stop being obstinate about settlements and make peace then her problems would go away. I think she trusts in the American ideal of tolerance, and I think she believes in social progress, in which the present disturbances are only hiccups.

This seems to be the view of many liberal American Jews over the age of about 50, of whom she is representative. It is certainly the picture that is pushed by the media that they most trust, such as the NY Times and NPR. It is what they hear from most of their Reform rabbis.

These ideas are wrong. Israel is in as much danger today as she was in 1948, 1967, and 1973. The weapons in the hands of our enemies right now are incredibly dangerous. There is not now, and hasn’t been a possibility of rapprochement with the Palestinian Arabs since Yasser Arafat took over their movement in the 1960s. This is not because of anything Israel is doing, other than existing as a Jewish state in the Middle East. Settlements aren’t an obstacle to peace; the irredentist Arab presence in the Jewish heartland is the obstacle.

As far as America goes, I would like to think that the ideals of freedom and tolerance that were expressed by the Founders had always characterized the nation, but history tells a different story. The US was never very friendly to minorities in general; the good treatment of the Jews after 1945 is actually exceptional, both for America and for Jews. It is threatened today by the intersectionalist cultural revolution that is trying to remake the country into a totalitarian “people’s republic.” There is certainly social change, but there is no such thing as positive social progress.

But it may be that the pendulum is finally swinging in the other direction for some younger people. We hear a lot about the young Jewish kids who join Students for Justice in Palestine, or (even worse, in my opinion) IfNotNow. But there are also those who resist the trend. Some go to Israel and volunteer to be lone soldiers, a difficult, dangerous, and courageous road to take. Others, like the members of Students Supporting Israel (SSI) are starting groups on campuses to push back against the intersectionalist tide.

Indeed, just as the Republicans will sweep the coming midterm elections as a direct response to the excesses of woke intersectionalism, I’m hopeful that students on the campuses will turn back the Maoist trend that has held free expression hostage for the last few years.

As for my column in the Jewish Federation’s newsletter, I plan to keep trying to sneak some sensible pro-Jewish and pro-Israel content into it. Who knows, maybe the older generation can change too.

Abu Yehuda

[thecurioustale]

This has been one of the more dispiriting political lessons I've learned in my long life, and one which took me a long time to learn. Many if not most leftists, especially progressives (progressivism being where most of the action on the left is these days), are not meaningfully better than rightists in character and wisdom. Their saving grace, the one thing they have going for them, is that they happen to be better on the issues most of the time. And when they lose that, they have almost no ground to fall back on. No redeeming qualities at all. And in these moments where the veil of being good on the issues is pulled away, it gets a lot easier to see how vapid and ugly these people actually are. Or maybe barbaric and primitive would be better words. I find myself also drawn to the descriptor zombie, because it so quickly conveys the core idea.

This is basically the whole anti-Israel shebang in a nutshell. And it's also how you start to get otherwise-unremarkable leftists around the world sounding increasingly like not only hardcore Islamic jihadists but also actual 1930s Nazis when talking about Jews—or, ahem, "Israel."

In the real world, Israel's standing is pretty clear-cut in the other direction: Israel is a free nation surrounded and outnumbered by Islamic extremists and hostile foreign powers, and for generations has defended itself viciously and ruthlessly, on threat of extinction, against enemies who mainly utilize terrorism and guerilla tactics of warfare to ensure that as many of their own civilians as possible are caught up in the conflict and mutilated, because when you're a terrorist the suffering of your own people is a propaganda boon and when you're a religious extremist you believe in the holiness of martyrdom. There is plenty in the weeds to criticize about Israeli policy, and various aspects of the Israeli government, and Israeli society's own struggle with fringe religious extremism that has grown increasingly mainstream with time, but that's a conversation that only ever seems to happen among pro-Israel folks or people who aren't especially committed on the issue. On the anti-Israeli side, Israel's standing really is nearly as one-dimensional as you would find among Hamas.

I have become persuaded over the years, by a sad preponderance of evidence, that most progressives—a clear majority; well more than half—do not actually, personally care about racism, or sexism, or any of it. At all! It's all just performative for them, carried out subconsciously in the service of belonging to a chosen tribe. If you asked them why they hold the views they hold, they would speak to you of the righteousness of their causes, same as on the right or for that matter on the center or among the holier-than-thou apoliticals—because at the end of the day it's really just a human characteristic, widespread in our species though not ubiquitous, i.e a part of our intrinsic tribal nature—but, despite their claims, the righteousness of their issues is almost never the true reason with these folks. (And you can tell the difference based on the nuance and charitability with which they engage on the subject matter.) And I don't think it's part of some grand lie, either. I think, for the most part, people—regardless of their politics—genuinely believe what they're telling you they believe. They just don't realize that they've been deceived by themselves, that whole pillars of their worldview are merely rationalizations to justify affiliating with whatever tribal entities in society and to uphold their preexisting notions on which they place the weight of personal legitimacy and self-worth.

This is principally what I'm talking about when I say that people often do not mean what they say.

Such is the problem of putting the cart before the horse when it comes to being led by conscious thinking versus being led by unconscious social posturing. It's how mass delusions are formed, and it's how hatred spreads so rapidly, like wildfire in the dry forest.

And the damnedest thing is, recognizing all of this doesn't actually make you one of the exceptions. Because it's not a binary thing, where you're either entirely self-aware or entirely self-deluded. Some people, perhaps sadly even most people, really are zombies almost all the way through—at least in matters of ethics and politics—but other people have areas of clarity where they behave like conscious individuals in their engagement with issues and the subject matter therein, while concomitantly also having areas of animality and obscurity where they behave like unconscious tribalists i.e. part of an unthinking mass of flesh attached to a larger whole i.e. just plain zombies. Usually the areas of clarity come from a mixture of strong self-awareness and formative life events that clued them into the depths of an issue—something I've encountered a lot over the years in my extensive involvement in fat acceptance, where so many of my allies on the issue have also been just utterly horrible human beings. Meanwhile, the areas of obscurity and animality are a crude but usable representation of people's overall self-awareness and depth of conviction. (And, to be clear, there also absolutely are people who are "clear" on most issues—deliberate and knowledgeable and purposeful—but still wrong. In fact many of the worst people fall into that category. See: Mitch McConnell. So that's not a good indicator either.)

"Anti-Zionism" is zombiism. It's not a real thing. It's like "anti-wokeism" on the right. The sincerity and fervor of its adherents is unrepresentative of the conditions of reality. At best it is a grotesque caricature of real-world events and conditions; more substantially it is just a looked-for and easily-embraced vector for hate. And Jews have always been one of the easiest targets for it, at least in the Christian and Islamic worlds born of Judaism long ago.

As we approach the one-year mark of this latest flareup of global anti-Semitism, following the mass-slaughter of October 7 whose perpetrators made no effort to feign somberness over but instead celebrated gleefully in a manner that most anti-Zionists would prefer in their imaginations to associate with IDF soldiers ransacking Palestinian orphanages—and also the one-year anniversary of fifth column actions in the West like the "All Out for Palestine" rally held by the Democratic Socialists for America in Times Square just one day later on October 8—I find that I have reacted to the present flareup differently from how I did in the past...mainly because preexisting weariness and stress made me irresilient to the upsetting nature of it, but also out of greater acceptance of the fact that anti-Zionists are zombies and there will never be any reasoning with them or getting through to them. After going through the various convulsions of the not-unfamiliar sting of being betrayed by my ideological allies, I have come to accept that leftist anti-Zionists will be mindless enemies on this issue indefinitely while remaining mindless allies on other issues, and that's just how it it's going to be, because they're not going anywhere and I can't just stop being a leftist—because I actually do have thoughtful convictions that somewhat bind my behavioral options.

Sartre wrote, in a 1944 essay, and nominally disagreeing with me slightly:

Never believe that anti-Semites are completely unaware of the absurdity of their replies. They know that their remarks are frivolous, open to challenge. But they are amusing themselves, for it is their adversary who is obliged to use words responsibly, since he believes in words. The anti-Semites have the right to play. They even like to play with discourse for, by giving ridiculous reasons, they discredit the seriousness of their interlocutors. They delight in acting in bad faith, since they seek not to persuade by sound argument but to intimidate and disconcert. If you press them too closely, they will abruptly fall silent, loftily indicating by some phrase that the time for argument is past.

He believed that on some level people are aware of what they are doing when they engage in debates so disingenuously and make absurd criticisms so frivolously. And this reminds me of how dirty the fighting sometimes get in leftist trenches, not just on the issue of Israel but in general. But to keep it on this issue with an example, I spent a lot of time on grassroots progressive bastion website Daily Kos in the 2000s, and I remember how much shit they gave the (Jewish) US senator, Joe Lieberman, who actually died this year but who for most of his career was a Democrat (switching to Independent at the end after having been cast out by the left). We're talking low-down, dirty, baseless smears and hatred. And at one point Lieberman was asked about this, and he said something to the effect of (I paraphrase) "These people will say anything. They'll say I beat my wife." And for the record he had a solid marriage and was a pretty sweet guy; there was never any suspicion or accusation. Lieberman picked it as an example because in his mind it was one of the most absurd things he could think of. Yet, sure enough, immediately there were lots of people on the left who started treating that as an admission, and seized on it and started using it as a rhetorical attack line. Even the founder of Daily Kos did it at one point. ("I'm not the one who made Lieberman beating his wife part of the political conversation"; again I paraphrase.)

These are people who, when you switched them onto another channel, were some of the left's principal voices for upholding reproductive rights, confronting global warming, providing affordable healthcare to those in need...here behaving essentially like little devils, with almost gleeful cruelty.

Behold the stark difference between wearing the veil of being good on the issues and not.

In the end I think there would be no substantive disagreement between Sartre and me, because this kind of awareness, to the extent it does exist, is only awareness of the social sort: the awareness of being subversive and fighting dirty and sticking it to "the enemy." The delight in cruelty. It flirts a little bit with psychopathy, I think. In any event there's no actual mindful awareness in it, no contemplation of the principles at issue or the consequences of one's actions. It is the dim awareness of zombies.

And it is very hard to overcome the vast noise and repetitiveness of the callousness and frivolity of zombies who saturate media spaces with their slanderous barf. They never had a chance of winning the argument, but in a world where philosophical merit is a currency valued only by a few, that doesn't matter. The way to pierce their din of noise is to speak your mind and not let them dislodge you from your ground, thus remaining visible like a beacon for anyone who happens to look, and to vote for pro-Israeli candidates in Democratic primaries and lobby existing elected officials to remain supportive of Israel while also negotiating the difficult geopolitics and the horrific complications of civilian suffering.

There's no fixing anti-Zionists. No scalable cure for zombiism. Not realistically, anyway. Certainly not quickly. There's nothing actionable you or I can do in the moment except to not quail in publicly upholding our own principles. And so that's what we must do. When people tribalistically come down on a given side of a given issue, that's where they're going to stay, except in rare cases of deconversion or genuine wake-up moments, and of course more commonly by the passage of time causing the tribal god images of zombies' mindless worship to evolve into different shapes, like clouds passing in the sky.

You never gave a shit about "woman life freedom" did you? You support Iran and its proxies.

You never gave a shit about slavery. You support the Houthis.

You never gave a shit about colonialism. You're happy to colonize our indigenous homeland on behalf of the arabs, and you stand with Russia's allies. Russia is the largest colonial empire in the world.

You never gave a shit about racism. You're happy to be racist against jews, happy to be "noble savage" racists, happy to close your eyes to arab racism.

You never gave a shit about religious extremism. You're happy to support jihadism.

You never gave a shit about Ukraine. You support Russia and its allies, closing your eyes to the fact that Iran sells shahed drones to Russia and both the PA and Hamas have both been to Moscow

We knew you never gave a shit about jews. And now you showed us that you don't give a shit about everything else, too.

[jordanianroyals]

King Abdullah II Interview with CNN’s Fareed Zakaria

25 July 2021

King Abdullah II spoke to CNN’s Fareed Zakaria in a wide-ranging interview that was conducted in Washington, DC, and aired on Sunday.

In the interview, King Abdullah spoke about his recently concluded US visit, his vision on regional matters especially the Palestinian cause, prominent national issues, and Jordan’s steadfastness amidst challenges.

Following is a transcript of the interview as it was broadcast:

“Fareed Zakaria: Your Majesty, welcome.

His Majesty King Abdullah II: Thank you, Fareed.

Zakaria: I have to ask you about first what seems the most startling thing looking at your part of the world, which is the new government in Israel. Prime Minister Netanyahu and you had a good relationship, but a tough one. The new prime minister, however, is somebody, Naftali Bennett, who says explicitly that he rules out the idea ever of a Palestinian state. In fact, he’s talked about Israel annexing the West Bank. So, how do you look at that new government, and where do you think the prospects for peace are?

King Abdullah II: Well, again, Fareed, we have known each other long enough to know that we always look at the glass half full, and coming to the United States, as the first leader from that part of the world, it was important to unify messaging, because there is a lot of challenges as you well know and we will probably get into. So, it was important for me not only to meet with the Palestinian leadership after a war, which I did, with Abu Mazen [Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas]; I met the prime minister; I met General Gantz. We really have to get people back to the table, under that umbrella of how do we get Israelis and Palestinians to talk—maybe understanding the challenges that this government may not be the most ideal government, in my view, with the two- state solution (which is the only solution)—how can we build [understanding] between Jordan and Israel, because it has not been good, but more importantly, from my view, is getting the Israelis and Palestinians engaging again. And I came out of those meetings feeling very encouraged, and I think we have seen in the past couple of weeks, not only a better understanding between Israel and Jordan, but the voices coming out of both Israel and Palestine that we need to move forward and reset that relationship.

Zakaria: Do you think that the Israelis can maintain the situation as it is, which is with all these Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza, Israel has sovereignty over them, but they don’t have political rights. Israel seems to feel—look, we’re doing fine, we’re, you know, we’ve become an extraordinary technological regional power, maybe global power, economically thriving, the Arabs are making peace with us, even though we haven’t moved on the Palestinian issue. Can’t Israel just keep doing what it is doing?

King Abdullah II: I think that’s a very fragile façade, and I say that because, again, when we have wars, there is a template there; I know what is going to happen over the three weeks and how—the loss of life and tragedy on all sides. This last war with Gaza, I thought, was different. Since 1948, this is the first time I feel that a civil war happened in Israel. When you look at the villages and the towns, Arab-Israelis and Israelis got into conflict, and I think that was a wake-up call for the people of Israel and the people of Palestine. Unless we move along, unless we give hope to the Palestinians—and again, part of the discussions that we have had with our Israeli counterparts is, how do we  invest in the livelihood of the Palestinians—if they lose hope, and then, God forbid, another cycle, the next war is going to be even more damaging. Nobody ever [wins] in these conflicts, but in this last one, there were no victors. And, I think that the internal dynamics that we saw inside of Israeli towns and cities is a bit of a wake-up call for all of us.

Zakaria: Dore Gold, an influential adviser to Prime Minister Netanyahu, recently said, Jordan needs to start thinking of itself as the Palestinian state. In other words, there is a two-state solution, the Palestinian state is Jordan, I think the implication would be, of course, you have 60-70 percent Palestinians, you could absorb the Palestinians in the West Bank. This has been touted before, but here you have a fairly influential Israeli saying it. What is your reaction?

King Abdullah II: Well, again, that type of rhetoric is nothing new, and basically, those people have agendas that they want to do at the expense of others. Jordan is Jordan. We have a mixed society from different ethnic and religious backgrounds. I would maybe contest the percentage in the figures that you have mentioned, but it is our country. The Palestinians do not want to be in Jordan; they want their lands, they want their football team, they want their flag to fly above their houses. And so, that takes us into very dangerous rhetoric, as you alluded to. If we do not talk about the two-state solution, then, again, are we talking about a one-state solution? Is it going to be fair, transparent, and democratic? I think that the one-state solution is far more challenging to those in Israel that push that theory than the two-state solution, which is the only way. And I will go back to the beginning of the interview, that for the first time since 1948, Arab-Israelis and Israelis were having a go at each other. What are you going to do? Are you going to push all of the Palestinians out of their homes in the West Bank, and just create instability on the other side? At the end of the day, Jordan gets a vote in this. And I think our red lines have been clearly identified.

Zakaria: Your Majesty, what has it been like meeting with Joe Biden compared to his predecessor? This is a very different president from the one we had before.

King Abdullah II: Well, I have, fortunately, had a very strong relationship with all presidents. And that is because my father taught me that you have to respect the office of the president, the head of state, and that’s not just America. And my discussions have always been fruitful, done in mutual respect and understanding. President Biden I have known since I was a young man visiting the Congress with my father, when he was a young senator, so this is an old friendship. And I was just so delighted to see him in the White House. And I don’t know what images came out, but my colleagues that were with me could just see the chemistry there. And my son has known the president; as Joe Biden was the Vice President, my son used to go and visit him at his house and in his office, so it’s a family friendship.

Zakaria: Do you expect that you will get a different policy out of Biden than Trump?

King Abdullah II: Well, we have lost a couple of years, and part of it has obviously been the pandemic. And so, it is not the issue of a different policy, it is more of what are the plans that are out there. I mentioned Syria, but also when we look at Lebanon—the crisis there, the people are suffering, starvation is just around the corner, the hospitals are not working. And a lot of discussions we have had here, and I know the Americans are working with the French. When the bottom does fall out, and it will happen in weeks, what can we do as the international community to step in, knowing that whatever plans we come up with, we will fall short of our aims, and we will let people down. So I think it is, can we build plans to sort of move the region into the right direction?

Zakaria: Let me ask you about stability in Jordan itself, because your country is often seen as a kind of island of stability in a very rough neighbourhood. You have recently had what looked to the outside world like an attempted coup. What happened there and what do you see is the prospect for any instability in the future?

King Abdullah II: Well, again, you know, when we look at crises all over the world, and I think in this day and age, we tend to look at crises as a snapshot without really understanding the journey that actually Jordan, for example, has undertaken over the past several years—regional instability, wars, refugees, and COVID. And we have had to look at many characters that tend to use people’s frustrations and legitimate concerns of challenges that they have in making their lives better, to really push on their own agendas and ambitions. What I think made this so sad that one of the people was my brother, who did it in such an amateurish and really disappointing way. From our point, the intelligence services, as they always do, gather information, and they got to a point where they had legitimate concerns that certain individuals were trying to push my brother’s ambitions for their own agendas, and decided, quite rightly, to nip it in the bud, and quietly. If it had not been for the irresponsible manner of secretly taping conversations with officials from Jordan or leaking videos, you and I would not be having this conversation.

And I believe that I am really proud when members of our family are successful, when they can reach out to society. Now, in this particular case, if somebody has certain ambitions, I can only do so much for them, but I believe from a human point of view, it comes down to sincerity at the end of the day. It is very easy to use peoples’ grievances for personal agendas, but are you sincere in what you are trying to do for your people? And at the end of the day, we all have a responsibility to be able to come up with solutions for the people. And this is not just Jordan-centric, many royal families around the world have these challenges. If you are a member of the Royal Family, you have privileges; you need to respect those privileges, but also there are restrictions. And politics, at the end of the day, is the purview of the Monarch. And so it is just unfortunate, unnecessary, and just created problems that we could have avoided.

Zakaria: One of the people who was part of it was very close to the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia. Do you believe there was a Saudi hand in this?

King Abdullah II: This is being looked at as a domestic issue. We all know that Bassem, who used to work in Jordan, is a senior adviser in Saudi Arabia. He holds Saudi and American passports. We have witnessed external relations on this issue, but, as I said, we are dealing with this as a domestic problem, and, again, knowing Jordan, finger pointing does not help at all. We have enough challenges in the region; we need to move forward. This has always been the Jordanian ethos to look to the future. And I think we are all about mitigating challenges and difficulties, as opposed to adding to them.

Zakaria: Let me ask you, this week, your grandfather was assassinated 70 years ago at the Temple Mount [Al Aqsa Mosque/Al Haram Al Sharif]. Does it feel to you as though in those 70 years, things just remained the same? Do you feel as though things have gotten better? Particularly on the issue, I mean, he was assassinated by Palestinian gunmen. It feels like things haven’t moved that far forward.

King Abdullah II: Well, we are celebrating our centennial, and if you look at the history of our country, with all the shocks—and most of them external—it is just amazing that Jordan is still Jordan, and that reflects, I believe, on the legacy of members of my family, but more important, I think, the steadfastness of the Jordanian people. We do live in a difficult neighbourhood, and you have got to sort of wake up every morning to look at the glass half full. The way King Abdullah looked at regional politics and trying to bring people together is what my father inherited from him, and what I inherited from my father, and my son has inherited from me. So, as difficult as the challenges are, I believe that we can come together. My great grandfather, as you said, was killed on the steps of the [Al Aqsa] mosque in Jerusalem. What we have all been about, always, is looking at Jerusalem as a city that brings Muslims, Christians, and Jews together, and it is just inconceivable to me why we would want anything else. So, my role, my son’s role will continue to be how do we make this a city of hope, a city of peace, and bringing people together, and hopefully that reflects to other policies as we deal with challenges around the Middle East.

Zakaria: Your Majesty, it is always an honour and pleasure to talk to you.

King Abdullah II: Thank you.”

[donewithcapitalistfrayers]

A very concrete example of such inter-movement negotiation of Zionism is the writing of the LGBTQ Palestine delegation’s solidarity statement (with which Puar was involved). For Palestinian participants, a lot of compromising happened in this process, one of which was the group’s repeated assertions (throughout the text) that they support Israeli progressive activists. We understand activists’ fear of being labeled "anti-Semitic.” But for Palestinians, these comments put Israel and Israelis on an equal footing with Palestinians. They expressed a “coalition” interest that distorted the meaning of solidarity with the Palestinian liberation struggle. Nevertheless, the announcement of “acknowledging and resisting US complicity and settler colonialism” was actually one of the crucial parts of the statement that was included and, moreover, added a new layer to the growing debate. It is worth noting that here, the “divisive issue” of Zionism was implicitly on the table, and what is evident in the statement is both an egalitarianizing of Israelis and Palestinians and a simultaneous critical acknowledgment of (US) settler colonialism.  Such compromise and negotiation is part and parcel of this work.  Such interactions allow us to develop a sharper discourse, expose its limitations, and construct a future vision together that is compatible with long-term movement building.

We are well aware of the problematic hegemony of particular gay Western notions and strategies.  It is true that a significant challenge of pinkwatching activism has been to draw a line between queer involvement in the struggle for Palestinian liberation and the tendency to make pinkwatching about queers and sexuality in Palestine/Israel. But we find this to be a problem much more in Israel than in the US or Europe.  There are still many gay Israeli activists who insist that “Israel does have gay rights, and we as gay activists worked hard to make it happen,” doing what we call “pinkwashing in reverse” (see, for example, this interview with Hagai El-Ad and the writings of Aeyal Gross).  But careful examination of most of the pinkwatching materials, statements, and actions produced in the last three years reveals a movement committed to channeling all of our capacity and vision to expose Israel’s colonial project, occupation, and apartheid.

Pinkwatching is not about gay rights; it is not about gay Israelis (progressive or not); it is not about the status of homosexuals in Palestine; it is not about self-congratulatory gay Americans or Europeans. Indeed, Queer BDS and Pinkwatching are part of a Palestinian-led campaign. Pinkwatching originated by promoting the Palestinian liberation struggle as relevant to worldwide queer movements by highlighting our responsibility to engage in and fight other struggles. From the beginning, BDS was a key practice that shaped pinkwatching activism. Rather than viewing pinkwatching as homonationalist, then, we understand it as an act of solidarity, akin to the BDS work of people of conscience all over the world. Pinkwatching activists  defer to the leadership of (queer) Palestinians in their work not as an exercise in homonationalism, but rather from a commitment to working in solidarity with those most affected by violence and domination, a central principle of anti-oppression organizing. This work is undertaken not “in the name of” Palestine, a Palestinian nation, or an exceptional Palestinian sexual subject (much less from a superficial celebration of identity politics). It does not commit one to any particular state or state formation whatsoever (just as BDS work does not commit one to a one state solution). It is instead a form of holding ourselves accountable to the needs and requests of those most affected by violence and oppression.  We see such acts of solidarity as, if anything, a deflection of US homonationalist practices.