#just how far will israel be allowed to go on

[astraystayyh]

it kills me to think that a child was beheaded by israel in rafah, and the father’s first response was to lift him up for the cameras and for the world to see, in a desperate bid for the world leaders to do something. palestinians cannot mourn in peace, they can’t grieve their loved ones, they cannot offer them a proper burial, they cannot process their emotions and their losses. they turn the cameras to dismembered and beheaded bodies, torn and blown-up limbs. and yet nothing changes. nothing is done to stop this. where is our humanity? what good are laws and international institutions for if they dont stop this

[stil-lindigo]

"Kamala Harris has earned an eleventh-hour show of support from Palestinian, Arab and Muslim community leaders."

On October 24th, a collective statement titled "Arizona Palestinian, Arab, Muslim, and Progressive Democrats and Community Leaders Statement on Presidential Election" was published.

The 100+ signees include current or former leaders of Palestinian, Arab and Muslim organisations, the leader of Phoenix, AZ's largest mosque, Jewish activists and other elected officials. All of them have been listed at the bottom of this post.

You can read the whole statement here but I've also copy-pasted it's entire contents below.

Read. The Whole. Thing.

It is concise and will only take you a few minutes. While you read, recognise that these words are not representative of every single person belonging to these demographics. Palestinians, Arabs and Muslims are not a monolith, and have a right to feel any way they do about this election. To those who do not belong to these groups - refrain from adding your personal commentary in the tags, and understand how excruciating of a place this statement must have come from for both the authors, signees and the communities they represent.

---

Arizona Palestinian, Arab, Muslim, and Progressive Democrats and Community Leaders Statement on Presidential Election

As Democrats and leaders in the Palestinian, Arab, Muslim and Progressive communities in Arizona, we the undersigned make the following statement, published on 10/24/2024:

This past year has been very difficult for all of us. With over 42,000 Palestinians killed by Israel using American-supplied weapons and no end in sight despite all our struggle for a ceasefire, we approach the presidential election heartbroken and outraged.

We know that many in our communities are resistant to vote for Kamala Harris because of the Biden administration’s complicity in the genocide. We understand this sentiment. Many of us have felt that way ourselves, even until very recently. Some of us have lost many family members in Gaza and Lebanon. We respect those who feel they simply can’t vote for a member of the administration that sent the bombs that may have killed their loved ones.

As we consider the full situation carefully, however, we conclude that voting for Kamala Harris is the best option for the Palestinian cause and all of our communities. We know that some will strongly disagree. We only ask that you consider our case with an open mind and heart, respecting that we are doing what we believe is right in an awful situation where only flawed choices are available.

In our view, it is crystal clear that allowing the fascist Donald Trump to become President again would be the worst possible outcome for the Palestinian people. A Trump win would be an extreme danger to Muslims in our country, all immigrants, and the American pro-Palestine movement. It would be an existential threat to our democracy and our whole planet.

When we think of Trump in power again, we recall that even a genocide can get much worse. Trump just said that Netanhahu must “go further” in Gaza while criticizing Biden for “trying to hold him back.” His biggest donor, Miriam Adelson, who demanded in 2016 that Trump move the US embassy to Jerusalem if elected –– which he then did –– is now telling Trump to allow Israel to annex the entire West Bank. Netanyahu, Ben Gvir, Smotrich, and the entire far right in Israel want Trump to win and grant Israel total free reign. We cannot give them what they want.

Trump must be defeated. The only way to defeat him is to elect Kamala Harris.

Voting for Harris is not a personal endorsement of her or of the policy decisions of the administration in which she served. It’s an assessment of the best possible option to continue fighting for an end to the genocide, a free Palestine, and all else that we hold dear.

We are deeply frustrated that Harris has not yet met our movement’s demand that she break with Biden, defy the powerful extremists enforcing the status quo, stand with the majority of Americans, and pledge to uphold US law and international law and condition aid to Israel. Still we believe there are clear reasons to hope that we can win positive policy change with a Harris administration and a Democratic Congress.

Multiple media reports state that Harris’s national security advisors are open to re-evaluating policy and conditioning aid to Israel. On October 13th, the same day the administration threatened to re-evaluate military support if Israel did not improve humanitarian conditions in Gaza and reduce civilian casualties in the next 30 days, Harris tweeted: “Israel must urgently do more to facilitate the flow of aid to those in need. Civilians must be protected and have access to food, water, and medicine. International humanitarian law must be respected.” In Michigan the other day, Harris expressed clear empathy for the suffering of the people of Palestine and Lebanon and the impact of this devastation on Arab Americans. She pledged to do “everything in her power” as President to end the war in Gaza, end the suffering of Palestinians there, and achieve “a future of security and dignity for all people in the region.”

Beyond Harris’s statements, we know that her decisions as President will be shaped by the larger Democratic Party coalition that includes a growing force pushing for Palestinian human rights. Our Arizona Democratic Party passed a resolution calling for a ceasefire in January. Every single member of Congress who has publicly called for a ceasefire in Gaza or for an arms embargo is a Democrat. The major national unions, civil rights groups, and progressive organizations that have called for a halt to military aid to Israel are all working to elect Harris.

On the other hand, the Republican Party coalition offers zero opposition to unconditional support for Israel and zero support for Palestinian human rights. Instead Republicans urge the US to join Israel in bombing Iran, call to “bounce the rubble in Gaza” and “kill ‘em all,” and would likely support the Israeli far right’s drive to annex Gaza and the West Bank.

What about a third party? Many in our communities believe this is our best option. Unfortunately, there is not a single third party member of Congress or even state legislator in America. In our electoral system, no third party candidate can win this election. But voting for them could make Trump president.

The polls show the presidential election is extremely close and that it will be decided by 7 swing states, including Arizona. While voting 3rd party may be strategic in non-swing states as a protest of the current US Israel/Palestine policy or as a step to qualifying the Green Party for public funding in future elections by winning at least 5% of the national vote, doing it in Arizona or other swing states in such a close election could bring disaster.

Some argue that if Palestinian, Arab, and Muslim voters and our allies vote for a 3rd party candidate and intentionally throw the election to Trump, taking credit for defeating Harris, it will prove our power to decide a close election and “punish Democrats” for complicity in genocide. Unfortunately, this is not how power, politics, or change works in our country. When Ralph Nader helped throw the election to Bush in 2000, he was rejected by millions for whom he was once a hero, banished ever since to the political margins. When Jill Stein helped throw the election to Trump in 2016, she remained relegated to the political fringe, becoming less powerful not more. If our communities ally with the Green Party to defeat Harris, we risk marginalizing ourselves as they did by alienating the tens of millions of voters who support the cause of Palestinian freedom and are fighting to defeat Trump by electing her.

Instead, by helping to elect Kamala Harris, we can say, “Despite it all, we gave you another chance and helped put you in office to defend democracy and uphold our highest American values. Now uphold them: end the genocide and secure Palestinian self-determination. We will fight every day to hold you to it.” If Harris and Democrats win, we will wage that fight with more allies among the American people, Congress, and the White House than ever before. If they don’t deliver, we will have a mandate and mass support to hold them accountable through every nonviolent tool of democracy, including protests, resignations, civil disobedience, primary election challenges, and even potential mass noncooperation. It’s a difficult path, but the one that offers the most hope.

The first step –– and our best choice in this horrible situation –– is defeating Trump by electing Harris. We urge you to join us.

Signers (affiliations listed for identification purposes only):

Maher Arekat, Founder, Palestine Community Center of Arizona

Usama Shami, President, Islamic Community Center of Phoenix

Fadi Zanayed, Vice President, American Federation of Ramallah, Palestine - Arizona

Shams AbdusSamad, Secretary, Maricopa County Dem Party; ADP Exec Cmte Mmbr - At Large & SCM

Samir Mufarreh, Palestinian American Christian Community Leader

Jordan Harb, Lebanese American Youth Leader

Stephen Mufarreh, Attorney, Palestinian American Christian Community Leader

Misaal Irfan, Pakistani American Community Leader

Samara Hamideh, Palestinian Youth Organizer

Mohamed El-Sharkawy, Palestinian American and a Muslim leader

Ala Rumah, Syrian American Activist

Dina Hamideh, Coordinator, Arizona Palestine Film Festival

Salauddin Choudhury, Bangladeshi Community Leader; DNC Delegate CD 5; LD 14 SCM

Hani Hani, President, American Federation of Ramallah, Palestine - Arizona

Dr. Navid Khan, Pakistani American Community Leader

Deena Mufarreh, Chair, American Federation of Ramallah, Palestine - Arizona

Syed Nasir Raza, Progressive Pakistani-American Community Leader; AZ Progressives

Ashraf Elgamal, President, Arab American Organization

Salina Imam, Charity Program Leader

Sawsan Tannous, Chair, American Federation of Ramallah, Palestine - Arizona

Saher Afzal, Pakistani American, Arizona Education Association member, and Exec board AEA local

Nathan Mufara, Chair, American Federation of Ramallah, Palestine - Arizona

Dr. Jaffrey Khazi, Community Leader

Hashim Hamid , Palestinian American Community Elder and Retired Businessman

​​Ameena Arekat, Palestinian American Health Care Worker

Mo Al Hwan Bahu, Palestinian American Christian

Deanna Dabbah, Former President, Arab American Anti-Discrimination Cmte, Fountain Hills, AZ

Dr. Hazem Jabr, Palestinian American Dentist

Jack Saba, Syrian American Entertainer & Democratic Voter

Ramzi Arikat, Palestinian American Business Owner in Phoenix

Shaikh F Shams, LD13 PC & State Cmte Member, Bangladeshi American Community Leader

Hussein Jabr, Palestinian American Doctor

Md Ibrahim Faisal, Bangladeshi American Progressive Democrats

Dean Dabbah, Community Activist, Fountain Hills, AZ

Mazen Arekat, Palestinian American Business Owner

Sujat Jamil, Bangladeshi American Progressive Democrats

Rocky Francis, Iraqi American Businessman

Hazem Arekat, Palestinian American Businessman

Arif Mahmud, Volunteer

Qumrul Ahsan, Precinct committee member LD13

Shahriar Anwar, LD13

Menassa Abinader, Lebanese American; Owner, Mejana Restaurant

Charlotte Hosseini, Sedona Resident ; Concerned citizen and voter

Tan Jakwani, Muslim Community Leader

William Havel, Iraqi Refugee

Jennifer Loewenstein, Jewish Voice for Peace - Tucson ; Arizona Palestine Network (AZ PAL)

Jessica Burke, Jewish Community Member & Progressive Activist

Bob Lord, Former Arizona Congressional Candidate, Jewish Community Member

Rachel Port, Jewish Voice for Peace -  Tucson

Laurie Melrood, Jewish Voice for Peace - Tucson; LD 20

Rep. Mariana Sandoval, LD 23

Rep. Quantá Crews, LD 26 ; State and Precinct Committee Person

Martín J. Quezada, Former State Senator

School Board Member Patti Serrano, PC and State Committee Member LD 13, 2020 Delegate

Kai Newkirk, Co-Chair, Arizona Democratic Party Progressive Council

Erika Andiola, Immigrant Rights Leader & Bernie 2016 Latino Outreach Press Secretary

Mikkel Jordahl, Attorney

Belén Sisa, Former Latino Press Secretary for Bernie 2020 and DACA Recipient

Salil Deshpande, LD18 State Committee Member; DNC Standing Committee Member

Dan O’Neal, Progressive Democrats of America - Arizona State Coordinator

Armonee D. Jackson, President, Young Democrats of Arizona

Eva Putzova, Former City of Flagstaff Councilmember

Emily Kirkland, PC LD 8; Former Executive Director, Progress Arizona

Melissa Galarza, Chair, LD12 Democrats

Cameron Bautista, Youth Organizer & School Board Coordinator, KeepAZBlue Student Coalition

Nick Collins, LD 12 State Cmte Member, Progressive Council Interim Steering Committee

Ken Kenegos, LD 18 PC, member Progressive Democrats of America

Michael Bradley, Arizona Palestine Network, LD 4 PC

David Higgins, Co-Founder, Arizona Palestine Network (AZ PAL)

Natacha Chavez, Precinct committee person LD 22

Sarah León, Community organizer

Elizabeth Hourican, CODEPINK Phoenix

Emily Verdugo, Community Leader

Kyle Nitschke, LD 6 State Committee Member

Barbara J. Taft, Leadership Team, WILPF US Middle East Peace and Justice Action Committee

Nicole Gutiérrez Miller, State and Precinct Committee Person, LD 12

Dianne Post, International Human Rights Attorney

Lindsay Love, Owner & therapist at TherapyLuv, PLLC ; former CUSD school board member

Joan Etude Arrow, Founder, Arizona Progressive Action Community (AZPAC)

Elizabeth Ogren, LD5 PC and State Committee Member

Jenise Porter, PC and State Committeeperson AZ LD18

Dave Wells, United Campus Workers of AZ, PC LD9

Andreas Clayton La Grow, Community Organizer

Robert Flamida, Palestine Community Center of Arizona, Member

Dr. Marannagan, Autistics for Peace

Bonnie L Lynn, State Committee Member

Frederic Artus, LD 5

Isabel O’Neal, State Committee, PC LD 14, CD 5 Immigration Advocate

Deborah Arekat, Democratic Voter

Asfandyar Khalid, Na

Kathy F. Yontz, PC LD12

Pardis Baradar, LD 12 PC

Grace Wagner Democrat LD8

Laiken Jordahl, Community organizer/advocate

Kathryn Soderquist, Constituent, AZ LD 9

Jana Rose Ochs, Progressive Democrats of America, Progressive Activist

Victoria Eloisa Ramos, Community Leader

Aaron J Essif, LD17 PC & SCM, PDA, Indivisibles

Judith Hilton Coburn, Member, CodePink Phoenix, PDA, Phoenix Anti War Coalition

Dev Gautam Dogra, Progressive social democratic student from The University of Arizona

Peggy Thomas, Progressive Democrats of America activist

Anne Khoury, Concerned citizen and voter 

Emily Williams, Democrat LD 12

Molly Donnelly, PC LD 12

[186-3]

courting antisemitism

so i recently decided to take a look at the latest stonetoss comics (probably because i love suffering). and while i was expecting some content on the israel palestine conflict, what i did not expect was how... standard it seemed. well, most of it at least, but i'll get to that in a second.

for context, if you don't know what stonetoss is, it's a (poorly drawn) webcomic known for having radical alt-right views - meaning it's incredibly racist, homophobic, transphobic, islamophobic, antisemitic. all that fun stuff.

so while i was expecting to see bad stuff, one of the first things i saw on the topic of israel was this:

terrible art aside, this comic is making a point that i usually see in left wing circles: that israel is pinkwashing genocide.

curious if there was more like this, i kept looking, and the comic right before that one was this:

again, this makes points that i usually see in left wing circles. that american healthcare is crazy expensive, that canada tells poor people to commit suicide, and that israel is bombing hospitals.

why does stonetoss, this well known alt-right nutjob, now seem to be bringing up left-wing talking points?

curious, i kept going deeper:

well this is... odd. clearly, stonetoss is trying to say that israel is on another level of bad, even worse than russia, iran, and north korea. i can possibly see someone on the left making the argument that the russian invasion of ukraine isn't as bad as what israel is doing in gaza, or that at least north korea isn't invading any other countries, but... iran??? the country that has a police force designed to enforce religious law, and gets away with murdering women who do not properly cover their hair? the country that props up paramilitary groups in countries all over the middle east, including lebanon, yemen, and yes, palestine?? that's completely ridiculous

but, given how much more israel is in the news nowadays than any of these other countries, i could see why someone would buy this

and now, we're starting to get to the crux of what stonetoss is trying to do. when someone sees this, they might be inclined to agree with it. they might begin to think that israel is the worst country on the planet

and that might not seem so bad at first. but the more you hate israel, especially irrationally, the more you feel allowed to dehumanize those who support it. the more you might be willing to agree with this comic, which came out two days prior to the one above

this comic says that jews, as a whole have no desire to exist with other people. it is blatantly antisemitic

i'm sure you could imagine some young leftist who sees the comics above this one and thinks, "this guy makes some good points". and then, when they get to this one, they might realize that this is antisemitism

or, they may not.

and that would start them down the road to becoming an antisemite.

this is what stonetoss and other alt-right nutjobs are hoping to achieve. to take left wing fury at israel, and direct it at jews.

we saw it with those neo-nazis at the palestine rally, and we're seeing it again here.

and if you've found yourself agreeing with what stonetoss has said so far, i would like you to see the last comic stonetoss put out before october 7th:

this horrifically racist comic is in reference to an environmental activist who was murdered by a black man in early october. this blatantly racist garbage is the kind of stuff stonetoss usually puts out.

but as soon as october 7th happened? these were his next two comics:

stonetoss completely changed the comic's tone as soon as the current crisis started. why?

to get as many people as possible to get on board with hating jews.

and i know many of you might be thinking that "well, everyone knows that stonetoss is racist garbage. nobody is going to fall for this"

except, as we saw with the neo-nazis at the rally for palestine, it's not always that obvious who the antisemites are and who is just rallying for peace. they are often a lot better at disguising it than stonetoss is.

AND EVERYONE NEEDS TO BE AWARE OF THAT

EVERYONE, no matter HOW much experience you have, can fall victim to propoganda. EVERYONE needs to be aware of what people around them are saying, and able to pick out hateful rhetoric, because even the stuff that is just kind of toeing the line of what's hateful is still putting your foot in the door

be cautious, everyone. and stomp out hate where you see it.

[blackpearlblast]

a rundown on the listed e-sim platforms from this tweet from mirna el helbawi. visit esimsforgaza to learn about this effort. (they also have a tutorial on how to purchase an esim and send it to them)

update v12 (5/21/24) holafly (israel and egypt), nomad (regional middle east), simly (palestine and middle east), mogo (israel), and airalo (discover) are currently in the highest in demand. if it has been more than 3 weeks since you initially sent your esim and your esim has not been activated, you can reforward your original email with the expiration date in the subject line. you can see gothhabiba’s guide for how to tell if your esims have been activated. if your esim has expired without use, you can contact customer service to renew or replace it.

troubleshooting hint 1: if you are trying to pay through paypal, make sure you have pop-ups enabled! otherwise the payment window won't be able to appear. (this issue most frequently seems to occur with nomad)

troubleshooting hint 2: if you are trying to purchase an esim using the provider's app, it may block you from purchasing if your phone does not fit the requirements to install and use their esims. use their website in your browser instead and this problem should go away.

nomad

for the month of may, first time referrals give 25% off for a person's first purchase and 25% off the referrer's next purchase! it's a great time to use someone's referral code from the notes if you are a first time buyer.

you can use a referral code to get $3 off your first purchase and also make it so the person whose code you used can buy more esims for gaza. many people have been leaving their referral codes in the replies of this post and supposedly a referral code may eventually reach capacity so just keep trying until you find one that works! BACKPACKNOMAD is another code to get $3 off your first purchase, it's been working for some people but not others so try out a referral code instead if you can't get it to work. NOMADCNG is a code for 5% off any middle east region nomad esims posted by connecting gaza. it can be used on any purchase, not just your first but is generally going to give less off than the first-purchase only codes, so use those first. it can be used in combination with nomad points. AWESOME NEW CODE: nomad esim discount code for 75% off any plan, NOMADCS25 do not know how long it lasts but this is an amazing deal esp. since they are really low on esims right now! (nomad promo codes do not work on plans that are already on sale, unlimited plans, and plans under $5)

weekly tuesdays only code on nomad web, PST timezone! it gives 10% off plans 10gb and above. NOMADTUE

nomad also seems to be kind of sluggish sometimes when it comes to sending out emails with the codes. you can look for them manually by going to manage -> manage plans -> the plan you purchased -> installation instruction and scroll down to install esim via QR code or manual input then select QR code to find the QR code which you can screenshot and email to them. often just the act of logging back into your nomad account after purchase seems to cause the email with the code to come through though.

mogo

mogo's website is fucking annoying to navigate and i couldn't find any promo codes, but their prices are massively on sale anyway. you have to pick if you want your esim to be for iphone, ipad, or android for some reason. according to statcounter, android makes up approx. 75% of mobile markets in palestine while iphone represents approx. 25%. so i would probably recommend prioritizing donations of android esims but if you can afford multiple, try buying an iphone one too? if i can find any official direction from the connecting gaza crew on this i will update with it.

a good referral code to use for mogo is 8R29F9. the way things are worded are confusing but as far as i can tell, if you use it we both get a 10% discount on your first purchase. (the referrer gets a 10% voucher that allows them to top up in use esims, they are someone who i know has bought a lot of esims and will be able to make good use of the top-up discount vouchers!) also upon signing up it automatically generates a password for you which you can change by downloading the app. (check your email to find your account's current password)

holafly (also looking for holafly esims for egypt now)

holafly is pricier than the others and the only promo code i could find was ESIMNOW for 7% off. someone in the tags mentioned GETESIM7 as another 7% off code they had received, so if you have already used ESIMNOW or can't seem to get it to work, try GETESIM7. another 7% off code is HOLAXSUMMER7 which is valid until june 2nd. referral codes only seem to give 5% off and they don't stack. (i don't remember the source, it was on some sketchy coupon site i don't want to link to and only can recommend because i tried it myself) you can also use my referral link for 5% off if you can afford the 2% worse deal on your end, it will give me $5 credit which i can put towards buying more esims. connecting gaza has also posted the promo code HOLACNG for 5% off but since it is less than the 7% off codes and as far as i can tell does not give credit towards others to buy esims like the referral links, i would consider it lower priority for use.

simly (note: simly must be downloaded as an app to be used, the website link is to help people confirm they are downloading the right app)

i have not personally used simly so i am going to be going off of the sixth slide of mirna el helbawi's instagram guide, with some corrections from someone who has successfully purchased an esim from simly. after downloading the app and making an account, search for palestine or middle east and purchase your preferred package. the page the app takes you to after your purchase should have the QR code to send to the esimsforgaza email, it won't show up in your email receipt. someone kindly left her referral code in the tags of this post, it gives $3 off your first purchase and will give her $3 credit to put towards purchasing more esims for gaza. the code is CIWA2. (if this referral code doesn't work, try one from the notes of this post!) according to someone in the notes, ARB is a simly promo code for 25% off esims that is still working as of march 3rd.

airalo

some people have noted issues trying to sign up for airalo using the browser version of the website, it worked for me but if you are struggling you can give the mobile app a try and that should work. you can use a referral code to get $3 off your first purchase and give the code suppler a $3 credit for buying more esims. KARINA9661 is a code sourced from this post which is also a wonderful example of how using people's referral codes can really make a difference. if for some reason that referral code isn't working, you can find more in the notes of the original esim post i made here.

@/fairuzfan also has a tag of esim referral codes for various platforms!

(note: mogo and holafly both link to israel esims as there are no general regional packages for the middle east like on nomad and the esims for gaza website specifically linked to the israel package on mogo, so i linked to the equivalent on holafly.)

[dughole]

radiohead’s complicity in israeli-occupied palestine

my feelings on radiohead are complicated these days, as i’m sure they are for many. i'm using this post as a method of sorting out my own thoughts & to provide sources.

for me, the bottom line is this: radiohead is both a brand & a musical group. the brand of radiohead has always had deep roots in the israeli colonial project - they have played many, many shows there throughout their career. their breakout single - creep, was intially only a hit in israel (x, x) & the personal choices of some of radiohead's members remain just as involved. jonny greenwood met his future wife - the israeli artist, antivaxxer & vehement zionist (x) sharona katan - at a show radiohead played in israel in 1993 (x). jonny consistently collaborated with zionist musician shye ben tzur & his projects continue to tour in tel aviv as recently as last september. as for jonny himself - his only statement in regards to the war on gaza has been in mourning for the israeli concert goers on october 10th - w no such empathy spared to the 100,000 palestinians dead, injured, or missing. as for thom, while he’s thrown a few bitchfits (x) through the years abt criticism of radiohead’s shows in israel, he has imo - only paid lipservice to the criticism, saying “playing in a country isn’t the same as endorsing its government” going against the pleas of his peers & coworkers in the music industry. as well as the pro-palestine activism undertaken by his long term friend micheal stipe (x & x). (note: stipe stood by radiohead’s performance in israel in 2017, but his current political choices suggest his understanding of the situation has evolved). even his own son - noah yorke, a fellow working musician, has voiced his opposition to the genocide in gaza via instagram stories. as for the other members, rhythm guitarist ed o'brien has called for a ceasefire, as well as making a few tweets about "solidarity with palestinians & israeli peacemakers". while bassist colin greenwood reportedly refused to accept letters of dialogue from the fan-run organization radiohead fans for palestine. drummer phillip selway's commentary is similarly brief but defensive, saying radiohead's 2017 tel aviv concert "felt right"

to me, this paints a picture of a band who's members stances on israel range from abhorrent to simply not enough. & as a brand, their particular combination of action & inaction amounts to a fundamentally zionist perspective. you cannot separate radiohead as artists from radiohead as a brand name.

i've loved radiohead since i was 14. i was brought into it by another longtime fan. i cried & danced when i saw them live back in 2017 - it was, & remains, a moment that allowed me to live through the hardest parts of my life. i felt for the longest time, that radiohead's music & political positions encouraged my empathy - my questioning of conservative political authority. & while all celebrities are failures in some sense - it is still heartbreaking to know how wrong i was.

i don't think it's possible to disconnect the decade of connection & love i have for their music - I won't ask that of myself or anyone else. & the idea of scrubbing one's taste of the "morally impure" is useless effort & an inappropriate simplification of both art & our conceptions of what makes someone "bad". but i can say with certainty - i will not be giving them any more of my money, whether that be streaming their music or buying their merch - & i encourage you to do the same. silence is complicity - this is beyond silence.

in the words of nina simone - "an artist's duty, as far as i'm concerned, is to reflect the times. how can you be an artist and not reflect the times? that to me is the definition of an artist."

[astroyongie]

FREE PALESTINE 🇵🇸

Hello everyone

Usually I don’t do posts like those, because I do not like to take political sides but staying quiet about such matters is just inhumane. Since the community is big, I want to use this opportunity to speak out in this matter that has been heart shattering from the past months. Despite having already spoken about the matter when it first broke out, I really wanted to write something about what happened in Rafah and what is happening in Palestine overall.

Israel is guilty of everything they have done and have made Palestinians endure and the attack of today on tent housings was anything but an “accident”. It was a premeditated attack, a tragic event that claimed over 40 lives and left many more injured. An act that shouldn’t go unpunished as they have broken countless ONU rules.

Israel killed over 37,000 people so far, countless are dying of hunger, disease, infection and from poor health care and poor sanitary conditions. How many more need to suffer for this to end? This is a genocide. It’s cruel and although my values don’t allow me, I will still wish misery upon those that support Israel’s actions. Anyone who supports this crime can meet their doom and block me.

Let us stand in solidarity with Palestine, advocating for justice and an end to the violence that has been perpetuating. Spread awareness, support humanitarian efforts, and call for a peaceful resolution. I call upon the spiritual world for help. May these children live without fear, may these families not grieve more than they have. May Palestine find peace.

FREE PALESTINE 🇵🇸

[phoenixyfriend]

Why I think it's important to understand the geopolitical anxieties of Israelis

Oftentimes, it feels like even recognizing that those anxieties exist is viewed as siding with Israel in the current conflict.

And I think that it's... weird, to do that. Dismissing the anxieties wholesale makes it harder to resolve the situation. Addressing them directly is possibly the only way to resolve the situation, because America.

Let me explain.

This will have three parts:

Why the propaganda works

How it affects current policy

How we can pressure the (mostly US) government about Israel using what we know about propaganda

Why the propaganda works

A lot of it is just propaganda, yes, but a lot of it is based in history, and a lot is also sort of self-fulfilling at this point. They have had reason to believe that some of their neighbors want all Jews dead or gone for a long time (see: Syria, Lebanon, Yemen), so it's not that it comes from nowhere. When over half the population is either Mizrahi Jews who fled from nearby countries that were happy to have a place to kick their Jewish populations out to, or their descendants, it's not hard to see that 'if someone else is in charge, we'll have to flee again.'

You could tell the French in Algeria to go back to France, but are you going to tell Mizrahi Jews to go back to the ME countries that they left? Sure, some left willingly, but that kind of wholesale eradication doesn't happen unless there's some degree of systemic discrimination or threat of violence. You cannot send Yemeni Jews back to Yemen.

The threat is real. It is not as large as the propaganda claims. It does not in any way justify nearly 30,000 deaths, half of them children. But the threat is not just imagined.

The fact of the matter is this: the propaganda is fueled by actual violence and legitimate fears.

And unless those fears are recognized and accounted for, Israel cannot be talked down.

Being told that a threat does not exist when recent history clearly shows otherwise is not going to convince anyone. I cannot emphasize this enough: even if the far-right government is replaced tomorrow, those fears will persist.

Israel's current government is violently and militarily opposed to restructuring itself in a way that allows for either a secular democratic single state, or a truly free and independent Palestine in a two-state solution. Due to mandatory army service and large scale propaganda, many have been taught since early childhood that the only way for Jews to be safe is for Israel to exist and to be so incredibly overpowered for their size that other nations won't invade them. The fact that both distant history and more recent, across the world, is filled with antisemitic discrimination, feeds this paranoia. A lot of people are out to get them, and have been since well before Israel was established. The destruction of Judea, the Edict of Expulsion, the expulsion of Jews from Spain, pogroms, the Holocaust, the near-total eradication in Yemen, Jordan, and Syria, and so on... this shit keeps happening. Some of it long ago, some if it very recent.

But it does keep happening, and that is why the propaganda works. That is why the fearmongering has teeth. It has happened before, over and over and over again, and it is being loudly threatened again. The propaganda works in Israel, and it also works in Jewish communities, and non-Jewish people who just happen to hear it, based elsewhere in the world. Like America. (This is important.)

Before moving forward, I need to make this clear: There are Jewish Israeli activists, both within Israel and without, that are vocally against Israel's actions against Palestine. Some are organized, and some are individuals. Some stories even go viral: Israeli-born Natalie Portman's been criticizing Netanyahu for years and politicians have called for her citizenship to be stripped for it. Tumblr loves the story of the Swiftie Twitter that went to jail for refusing to join the IDF, and that's very common; plenty of young people get months-long prison sentences, sometimes multiple times. Right-wing mobs go after Jewish Israelis who speak in support of Palestine in any way, and these things get violent.

(In that same article, it also talks about how Israeli Palestinians are suffering much, much worse under the government's crackdown on free speech.)

How it affects current policy

The thing is, there are only really four ways for this to resolve:

Israel wins. They succeed in pushing Palestinians out of Gaza by killing anyone who doesn't comply, and take it over for themselves. (This is bad.)

Israel is cut off from any and all support from abroad, both 'here, you can help yourself with these guns' and 'here, we will fight your enemies for you,' and is very suddenly at risk of invasion, mass murder, and removal from the Palestinian Mandate by those groups they fearmonger about, the ones that include slogans like "death to Israel, a curse upon the Jews." (This is also bad.)

Israel is convinced to stop attacking Gaza, possibly through the threat of no more support, and settles in to figure out a solution with Palestine, whether two-state or secular single state or whatever, and normalizes relations with neighbors enough that they can start cutting back on their military. (This is the best option.)

A foreign power or coalition of powers invades and forces Israel to stop, and oversees a transition from military state to peaceful state while protecting from outside attack, like was done to Japan and Germany following WWII. (This one is... interventionism is bad, but also almost 30k people have died with no end in sight, so it's starting to look like a real possibility.)

We can all agree, I hope, that the first option is not an option. That is Bad.

I also hope we can agree that the second option is not an option. A number of Israelis may be settlers in the traditional sense of the word, but a lot of them are refugees from neighboring countries, survivors of the Holocaust, or descendants of such. "Just go back where you came from" doesn't work when many of them came from places that were also saying 'go back where you came from' because Israel now existed to expel them to. It's also been around for 75 years now, and some three-quarters of the population were born in Israel. Expelling them all, even the ones that were there before the early statehood aliyah? It's... I don't know. I understand in theory why some activists push for it, but I do think it is fundamentally different from any comparative colonization or settlement.

(Note: I do not include Israeli colonies in the Palestinian West Bank. Those do need to be returned to their owners. Give people their houses and land back.)

The third option is the one that most people, I think, would like to see happen. However, the Israeli government is clinging to the propaganda that they will be eradicated as a Jewish people if they do not forcibly take power where they can, and they are spreading it out among Israelis. Dissent by Israeli Jews may not be criminalized, but the society around them sure isn't receptive to it. The recent invasion of Gaza has also inflamed tensions across the region, which means that even countries which were slowly normalizing relations, or at least.

Netanyahu has not been convinced, and by all appearances cannot be convinced. The only thing that may force his hand is the threat of no more military aid, so he suddenly has to start conserving what missiles he does have in order to fend off a possible attack instead of continuing to hammer on Gaza.

Sounds great, right? This is why we are all (I hope) calling our senators or representatives or whatever your country has to tell them to stop supporting Israel monetarily or with military aid. This is why I keep giving suggested topics for Americans to call their senators about, even if I'm just one voice, and there are much louder ones saying the same thing, but better.

And yet, the Senate passed the aid bill. They snuck it into a Veteran Affairs thing as a last-minute amendment, but they passed it, and any failure in the House will have little to do with sympathy for Palestine and a lot to do with domestic border policy.

So... Americans are also pretty convinced of the whole 'if we stop supporting Israel, they will be invaded and killed off by the Iran-backed militias' thing. Many do feel sympathy for Palestinians, hence the 'Israel, you need to knock that shit off' comments, but they also are genuinely of a belief that the Israeli propaganda of 'we will be overrun by antisemitic Muslim extremist militias and exterminated like in the Holocaust' is true.

Like. Either they fear for Israelis due to the antagonistic forces in the region, or they belong to Christofascist ideologies about how supporting Israel is the way to avoid suffering in Armageddon.

You can't get to the latter on ethics or morality or whatever. You can only rely on ulterior motives (the border things) or telling them 'your reelection is in jeopardy, change your mind or you're going to be voted out.'

The former, though... you can. They believe the things that Israel claims and has been claiming since 1948, with regards to threats.

And if you acknowledge why the propaganda works, you can address it.

How we can pressure the government about Israel using what we know about propaganda

If you say that there is no threat to Israel from Yemen, Lebanon, Syria, Iran, or so on, you will be dismissed as an idealist who hasn't done any research. If you say that Israelis should be left to their own devices, you will be viewed as cruel, and if you say they should be removed and the land given back to Palestinians, you will be laughed away (silently, but it'll happen). You cannot convince the American government with these tactics.

What can you say?

Israel is making things worse for itself in regards to these exact threats. Pushing on Gaza is making neutral and nearly-normalized countries like Egypt and Saudi Arabia less inclined to get in the way of the 'death to Israel' militias. The campaign is creating a whole new generation of extremists who will join the militias out of a desire to prevent more of these deaths by Israeli hands, and that will only increase the threat to Israel.

Destroying Hamas isn't going to do shit if Hezbollah, Iraq, Iran, the Houthis, and so on, invade. Especially if twenty years down the line, all those orphans that Israel just created these past few months start a new Hamas for revenge because, hi, look how many orphans you just created.

Netanyahu is working against the interests of the Israeli people. He is trying to remain in power, and the Gaza war is a distraction from the charges being levied against him.

Netanyahu has a vested interest in seeing that Donald Trump is elected, as they are much closer than the at best strained relationship with Biden. This is very complicated but if your senator or rep is a Democrat, it is relevant.

Israel's continued offensive is leading to the risk of millions of Palestinian refugees entering Egypt and destabilizing them, which, in an already unstable country in an already wobbling region, is going to risk another war across the Middle East. The US still has not pulled out all troops from the last one.

The US cannot afford, monetarily or in terms of foreign relations, to aid in causing a new regional war.

If Israel slows, halts, and withdraws peacefully from Gaza, tensions will settle enough to avoid possible invasion by those hostile forces they're so worried about. The UN can, if necessary, deploy forces to maintain relative stability until peace treaties are worked out. We'd like to avoid option 4 if possible.

The only way I can see to convince the US government to stop supplying weapons to Israel is to push on the fact that continuing to do so will, due to Netanyahu and his party's actions, put Israel in more danger rather than less.

There are other things to say to your senators, and I'll be making a post about that soon (not today, but probably this weekend; stuff like Michigan, UNRWA, international reputation), but in regards to just the geopolitics surrounding the propaganda, this is it. This is why we have to understand it. Because the way we get the United States government to stop giving aid to Israel to defend itself is by telling them 'this is putting them in more danger due to their head of state's aggression.'

This was very long, but I've seen a lot of misinformation and a lot of generalization, and a lot of it is... not great. Well-meant, sometimes, but not great. I felt it necessary to be very clear and very specific. I'm anticipating a lot of comments to the effect of "you forgot about this" and "but that doesn't excuse their actions" and "well, not all activists believe--" and I know.

I know.

But I've had people say "Nobody is advocating for the removal of all Jewish Israelis" to my ask box hours after I was talking about Yemen, a country that enacted a removal of all Jews and largely under the control of a group that has a slogan about doing just that to the Jewish Israelis.

So let me be very clear that I have seen a lot on tumblr recently, a lot of it extremist, and I'm not pulling any of this out of my ass or making up a guy to be mad at. I may not know everything on this topic--I may not even know much at all, given that it covers centuries of conflict due to the Ottomans--but I've been listening to hours upon hours of news from a variety of sources (Al Jazeera, BBC, NPR, and more) every day just to make sure I understand.

Please trust that, even if I get some things wrong, even if I don't cite every detail or generalize just a bit here and there, that I mean well. Please trust that I am making this in good faith and am trusting you to respond to it in kind.

Call your reps. Write them an email. Donate to a Palestinian charity.

It's a slog, but we can make a difference.

[captdedeyes]

Friendly reminder that Wix.com is an Israeli-based company (& some website builders to look into instead)

I know the BDS movement is not targeting Wix.com specifically (see here for the companies they're currently boycotting) but since Wix originated in Israel as early as 2006, it would be best to drop them as soon as you can.

And while you're at it, you should leave DeviantArt too, since that company is owned by Wix. I deleted my DA account about a year ago not just because of their generative AI debacle but also because of their affiliation with their parent company. And just last month, DA has since shown their SUPPORT for Israel in the middle of Israel actively genociding the Palestinian people 😬

Anyway, I used to use Wix and I stopped using it around the same time that I left DA, but I never closed my Wix account until now. What WAS nice about Wix was how easy it was to build a site with nothing but a drag-and-drop system without any need to code.

So if you're using Wix for your portfolio, your school projects, or for anything else, then where can you go?

Here are some recommendations that you can look into for website builders that you can start for FREE and are NOT tied to a big, corporate entity (below the cut) 👇👇

Carrd.co

This is what I used to build my link hub and my portfolio, so I have the most experience with this platform.

It's highly customizable with a drag-and-drop arrangement system, but it's not as open-ended as Wix. Still though, it's easy to grasp & set up without requiring any coding knowledge. The most "coding" you may ever have to deal with is markdown formatting (carrd provides an on-screen cheatsheet whenever you're editing text!) and section breaks (which is used to define headers, footers, individual pages, sections of a page, etc.) which are EXTREMELY useful.

There's limits to using this site builder for free (max of 2 websites & a max of 100 elements per site), but even then you can get a lot of mileage out of carrd.

mmm.page

This is a VERY funny & charming website builder. The drag-and-drop system is just as open-ended as Wix, but it encourages you to get messy. Hell, you can make it just as messy as the early internet days, except the way you can arrange elements & images allows for more room for creativity.

Straw.page

This is an extremely simple website builder that you can start from scratch, except it's made to be accessible from your phone. As such, the controls are limited and intentionally simple, but I can see this being a decent website builder to start with if all you have is your phone. The other options above are also accessible from your phone, but this one is by far one of the the simplest website builders available.

Hotglue.me

This is also a very simple & rudimentary website builder that allows you to make a webpage from scratch, except it's not as easy to use on a mobile phone.

At a glance, its features are not as robust or easy to pick up like the previous options, but you can still create objects with a simple double click and drag them around, add text, and insert images or embeds.

Mind you, this launched in the 2010s and has likely stayed that way ever since, which means that it may not have support for mobile phone displays, so whether or not you wanna try your hand at building something on there is completely up to you!

Sadgrl's Layout Editor

sadgrl.online is where I gathered most of these no-code site builders! I highly recommend looking through the webmaster links for more website-building info.

This simple site builder is for use on Neocities, which is a website hosting service that you can start using for free. This is the closest thing to building a site that resembles the early internet days, but the sites you can make are also responsive to mobile devices! This can be a good place to start if this kind of thing is your jam and you have little to no coding experience.

Although I will say, even if it sounds daunting at first, learning how to code in HTML and CSS is one of the most liberating experiences that anyone can have, even if you don't come from a website scripting background. It's like cooking a meal for yourself. So if you want to take that route, then I encourage to you at least try it!

Most of these website builders I reviewed were largely done at a glance, so I'm certainly missing out on how deep they can go.

Oh, and of course as always, Free Palestine 🇵🇸

[o-wyrmlight]

I haven't said anything on here because I've been so focused on what's been happening on Twitter. I spent six or more hours last night just retweeting whatever I could to help raise a ruckus. For anybody who isn't aware of what's been happening:

For the past 75 years, Israel has been doing exactly what the United States of America did to indigenous natives when we first began to claim the territory. They've been pushing Palestinians off of their homeland and claiming the land for themselves. They've been stealing homes and territory that doesn't belong to them, engaging in a quiet genocide.

They control what goes in an out of the border. They control how much food Palestinians are allowed to have access to. They control how much water and electricity Palestinians have access to in a day. They control how many times a year and how far out fishing boats are able to go, and they're relegated to areas where there are no fish. The amount of ships aren't enough to sustain the population. Israel has ensured that Palestinians cannot build bomb shelters by preventing those materials from coming into the country.

On October 7th, 2023, a Gazan organization named Hamas, which is stationed in the Palestinian city of Gaza, decided to retaliate. They did a plethora of horrible things to Israeli people, taking hostages. In response, Israel has begun being more aggressive and upfront in its genocidal attempts to eradicate Palestinians.

This is not an exaggeration. Israel is very upfront about what they want. The official Israeli account has posted what they've done proudly. The first event that made people outside of Palestine aware of what was going on was the bombing of a hospital that Israel boasted of, and then later walked back to claim it was a Hamas base.

There are rules of war to follow. Among them, it is a war crime to attack where people are taking shelter in places of religion and hospitals. Once this information was revealed and made obvious, public outcry for the support of Palestine began to ring out. Apparently it wasn't even the first hospital that Israel had targeted--there were over 10 at the time and more to come in the following days.

Consider that Israel knew they were targeting the hospital and sent out a warning for them to evacuate, and then remind yourself that there were people in the in the hospital who relied on the medical equipment to live. Where were they supposed to go on such short notice? Children and babies were killed. Israel admitted to doing this and then claimed that the hospital was a Hamas base. And soon after, they claimed that it was a misfired rocket by Hamas that hit the hospital. Isn't that so convenient?

Israel has warned a city to travel the road down south in ten hours--on foot, on a hiking trail that takes more than twelve--to reach safety. They promised they would be safe and that Gaza was the only place they were aiming to destroy. Instead, Israel proceeded to bomb and destroy the only safe passage that they were able to get. They weren't safe at all.

In the days to come, Israel would proceed to turn off all electricity and water in Palestine. They would continue to bomb various places under the presumption that they were Hamas bases. Hamas comes from the city of Gaza, so that doesn't explain why several of those places--even hospitals--were much farther south.

Yesterday, they bombed the communication tower that Palestinians have been relying on to communicate with the outside world. As far as I know, they've been dark ever since.

Egyptians have been trying to help. They've been trying to demand the gates to open so that they can send humanitarian aid in. There are people--good people--who don't care if they die for the cause or not. Hardly any humanitarian aid has been able to come in, and Israel has been teasing Egypt, their own weaponry poking at their boarder as a threat. If several missiles cross Egyptian boarders, how is it their fault of they were aiming at a hostile air craft?

Remember how much Israel monitored what comes in and what comes out of Palestine. They control how much electricity and water a day they have. They control their maritime and how far from the coast they're allowed to fish. Do you think that Palestinians are able to build such air crafts?

Egyptians have witnessed the horrors that have been happening from across the sea. The sky was red with fire and alight with bombs. The horizon echoed with the noise and the assault didn't cease. I don't know if it's still going on. I don't know if it ever stopped. But Israel is sending out ground troops now, and who knows how far that went since last night.

Israel calls this a war. Palestinians haven't been able to fight back. They don't have any weapons or a military of their own. Entire families have been wiped off of the face of the earth, numbering probably well over forty by this point. Entire generations are at risk of being killed. This isn't a war. This is a genocide.

Israel claims that Hamas hides behind its civilians for protection, but all Israel is doing is hiding behind Hamas as an excuse to commit ethnic cleansing.

The worst part to me is that world powers who could have done something to prevent this are actively doing nothing. The United States has been providing Israel with the very weapons that they're using to obliterate Palestine off of the face of the map. Britain has outlawed protests speaking up in support of Palestine. And there are a lot of protests. The public opinion knows that this is wrong. Joseph Biden has casted doubt on how many Palestinians have actually died just before the blackout occured.

The warning signs have been here for 75 years, and nobody has done anything about it. And now Palestinians are facing the most brutal evil that mankind is capable of, and nobody who can do anything about it is willing to lift a finger. What's the point of the United Nations to create laws of war that are to be followed if those laws aren't going to be enforced? What kind of message does that send to countries that violate those laws?

That they can get away with it.

This isn't even to touch on the fact that Israel has been paying content creators and companies to speak up in support of Israel. I wouldn't be surprised if they're doing the same with popular celebrities in the United States and elsewhere. I wouldn't be surprised if this is a part of why politicians are refusing to lift a finger to hold Israel accountable for their actions. Israel has always wanted control of the narrative. This isn't the first time, and it won't be the last.

I do want to point out that despite these horrors, it's important to remember that, while Israel has done these horrible things, you shouldn't blame the individual people. Not every single Israeli believes in this genocidal cause, but the system of government that encourages and rewards these behaviors should be held accountable. Israelis who disagree with Israel are very likely at risk of being punished severely if they express their beliefs. It's important to remember that.

Israel will cry antisemitism because they are a Jewish state: Holding them accountable for their actions is not antisemitism. Do not be afraid to do so. I have seen videos of Jewish people in the United States leading mass protests in support of Palestine, calling for a ceasefire in Gaza, for Palestine to be free. Don't blame all Jewish people or Israelites for this horror. Be angry at Israel the government, Israel the politicians, Israel the people who support them rabidly and celebrate the death of millions.

I know for a fact that there are some things I've missed. It's so difficult to tactfully cover everything that's happened over the past couple of weeks. But hopefully this is enough to let those who aren't aware of what's been happening know.

I'm ashamed to be a United States American. And I am angry at the politicians and the people in power who could have voted for a ceasefire and didn't. We are witnessing the evils of humanity at work this month. And yet we are also witnessing the selfless good that humanity is capable of, leading protests to free Palestine and call for a ceasefire, trying their best to raise attention to the people who did nothing. History will remember them as the villains of this story.

It feels like there isn't much you can do. But just knowing and spreading awareness of the situation is enough. It is enough. Israel has hired companies and social media to do their best to stifle talk and conversation about Palestine. YouTube has deleted fifteen years' worth of videos examining the Palestinian occupation and Palestinian culture as a whole. Israel wants Palestine to die in silence and be forgotten.

All you need to know is what is happening. All you need to know is to remember and not forget. All you need to know is acknowledge the Palestinian's generations-long suffering, know that we're living through a genocide, and see how world powers do nothing about it. This is how Adolf Hitler got away with it for so long.

So remember. Keep it in mind. Learn the warning signs. And be sure to remember this when it happens again.

Free Palestine.

[matan4il]

Daily update post:

Israel has been preparing for the possibility of a direct strike from Iran. To that end, the IDF has been initiating GPS jamming, first in the south, and now in central Israel as well. On a personal note, I had to calm my mom down today (I could do this thanks to having heard about it on the news already), because it's a scary thing for people, and they don't know what to think, when they open Waze and find themselves "appearing" in enemy territory. Iran's attack options might also include drone attacks, or anti-Jewish terrorist attacks around the world. We've heard about Esther and Mordechai's Tomb being attacked tonight in Iran itself.

Speaking of the country that's the biggest funder of terrorism globally, tomorrow it's "Al-Quds Day" (Jerusalem Day) in Iran. It was established in 1979, after the Islamist revolution, as an antisemitic political measure, meant to help radicalize people against the Jewish state. Officially, it's a protest of Israel's sovereignity in Jerusalem, the city which has been the capital of the Jewish people, the place we pray to, for over 3,000 years, longer than Islam has existed. Some people worry that Iran will use this date specifically to strike against Israel or other Jewish targets around the world.

With or without connection, the chief of Israel's army intelligence is quoted as saying in private conversations, "I have told you time and time again that it is not certain that the worst is behind us and we are ahead of complex days."

Back in February, we heard that the niece of Hamas' overall leader, Ismail Haniyeh, gave birth in an Israeli hospital, and her baby, which was born prematurely, was treated in an Israeli hospital's NICU, the same hospital that had to have millions of shekels spent on, in order to make parts of it safe during Hamas' rocket attacks. While at it, we were reminded that several of Haniyeh's sisters live in Israel after marrying Israeli Bedouins, and that a few more of his relatives were allowed from Gaza into Israel for medical treatment. Just a small reminder that Haniyeh's personal wealth is estimated to be somewhere between 4 to 5 billion dollars (Taylor Swift's is only a little over 1 billion dollars), and if he wanted to, he could have flown his entire family out of there, to join him in Qatar, with the best facilities and care, rather than get medical care at a hospital subsidized by the "genocidal Zionist enemy."

Now we get the news that one of Haniyeh's sisters, a 57 years old woman, has been arrested for helping Hamas, including support for the Oct 7 massacre.

This is 34 years old Lidor Levi.

He was critically injured in the Palestinian terrorist attack in Gan Yavne. He was in a hospital, fighting for his life for 4 days. Today we got the news that he succumbed to his wounds. He leaves a pregnant wife and a daughter behind. May his memory be a blessing.

I will never understand how the accidental killing of 7 civilians in Gaza is making more headlines, and causes more rage, than the on going and intentional killing of so many Israeli civilians targeted in terrorist attacks along this entire war. I can't remember the world even addressing it, let alone raging about how unacceptable these killings are, and how they're proof that Palestinian terrorist organizations must be stopped. For that matter, I haven't come across anywhere as many headlines and world leaders' statements about an intentional drone attack that killed several rescue workers in Kharkiv, where a residential area was targeted. The hyperfocus on the one conflict where Jews can be demonized, is also leaving a lot less attention for, practical aid, and just general caring about other conflicts, which are in many ways far worse (just look at Tigray alone on the below map). It's harmful to so many more people than we come close to realizing.

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

[fromchaostocosmos]

I found this gem of article. It has got to be some of the most disgusting Holocaust Inversion I've seen to date and I've seen a lot. It is an antisemitic hellhole. Because I have no interest in giving any form revenue via clicks I've decided to put the whole article here:

When the Holocaust returned it came denouncing Anti-Semitism and wearing a star of David

By Caitlin Johnstone

When the Holocaust returned it came denouncing anti-semitism and wearing a Star of David. It was never going to look how we were expecting. It wasn’t going to show up in its old familiar costume with the bent cross and the tiny mustache, blaming all the problems on the Jews. It had to look different. If it didn’t look different, we never would have let it in the door.

And that’s still what’s throwing a lot of people off: it looks different. It doesn’t look like what all all the World War II movies and Holocaust novels conditioned us to watch out for. In fact, it looks so different that the victims in the last story have the same religion as the antagonists in the new one.

That old aphorism “History doesn’t repeat itself, but it often rhymes” is true because people don’t tend to make the exact same mistake in the same way twice, but the conditioning which led them to make the first mistake will often lead them to make a second similar one. We’ve all been made far too familiar with the Nazi extermination program to ever consent to Jews being rounded up and loaded onto trains again, but we also didn’t purge from our civilisation all the murderousness, hatred and tyranny which made it possible. That’s why this new Holocaust has been allowed to happen.

We’ve all been conditioned to watch out for the next Hitler, but there’s never going to be another Hitler. We’ve been so focused on looking out for the Hitler who never comes that many of us missed when we started singing verses that rhyme with the ones we were hearing in Germany eight decades ago.

People assume what’s happening in Gaza can’t be an actual genocide, because the news media keep assuring everyone that’s not what we’re looking at, and so do the politicians in both parties.

“This can’t possibly be what it looks like,” people say. “If it was, we would have heard about it in the news.”

The villains in this new story don’t look like the villains in the old story, and, if you are a properly indoctrinated westerner, they might not look like villains at all. They might just look like Jews defending themselves from terrorists and western governments rightly defending their dear ally — which is exactly what they should do if they want to prevent another Holocaust!

But it’s that very misperception which is making today’s Holocaust possible. This mass atrocity is being tolerated by huge parts of the population exactly because we see it as intolerable for large numbers of Jews to be killed by those who hate them, not understanding that the people who were killed on October 7 were killed not because of their religion, but because they were part of a settler-colonialist project which is premised on the perpetual abuse of a preexisting indigenous population.

People defend Israel’s actions on the grounds that Israel has reasons for doing things the way it’s doing them. They have to bomb Gaza — they suffered an unprovoked attack from a bunch of evil terrorists. They have to bomb all the hospitals and schools and mosques — that’s where Hamas are hiding. They have to bomb areas that are packed full of children — Hamas are using those children as human shields.

But those who commit mass atrocities always justify their actions. They always have reasons for doing them. They always frame it as a necessary act of self-preservation.

That was always what the next Holocaust was going to look like. It was never going to feature new bad guys who cackle and twist their mustaches saying “Haha, we are evil! Let’s kill a bunch of people because we are evil!” They were always going to frame themselves as the heroes and victims, and the other side as the villains and victimisers. They were always going to offer a bunch of reasons why what they’re doing is actually good and righteous, even though it looks evil on its face.

If we are to prevent genocidal atrocities, we need to be able to recognise what’s happening in real time, and we can’t do that if we’re expecting them to show up in familiar and instantly recognisable packaging. We need to be able to see through the manipulations and justifications in the here and now so we can stop it in its tracks instead of waiting for history to judge it in our rearview mirror after it’s already happened.

This is important to recognise when it comes to saving Gaza, and it’s important to recognise when it comes to preventing the Holocausts of the future as well. They will never look identical to the Holocausts of the past. Their form will be unprecedented, and they will have different justifications for their orchestration. But they will rhyme. And we need to be able to pick up on that as it happens.

Republished from Caitlin Johnstone from Caitlin’s Newsletter, October 23, 2023

[booasaur]

Regarding a possible ground invasion of Lebanon (this is a HuffPo journalist who has great contacts in DC):

Reminder that this is what he posted in June, and has thus been borne out:

Dem voters have mostly adopted the tactic of closing their eyes to the carnage in the Middle East, except to support it or criticize those who want to stop it, with the hope that if they just got to the election and won, things would... change? Not matter? The Biden-Harris administration would no longer have to worry about the threat from Zionist donors and voters and actually use US leverage to push for a ceasefire?

Things are escalating fast now, before the election, as everyone actually knowledgeable about the area predicted. Netanyahu will see this as an opportunity to help Trump and even if it doesn't end up affecting the result, get in as much violence as he can before Harris takes over with what he fears will be a more standard Dem position of favoring Israel but not to the point of risking America's reputation and safety, as Biden has allowed. Or possibly he views Biden-Harris as exactly what they've been so far, a Democrat administration with no red lines that has normalized the killing of Arabs and Muslims in a way that a Republican presidency would not have.

So what's the plan? Even in Dems' best case scenario going forward, thousands would still die in Palestine, much of the West Bank would still continue to be annexed, but what's some more after a year or 75?

But now, with Lebanon being attacked, and Iran knowing Israel will strike them next with full impunity and US support, what are Dems going to do? How many more deaths and how much more suffering will they allow?

More importantly to them, a regional war comes with the risk of making the administration look weak and ineffective, a framing Dems always have to fight uphill against, especially compared to Trump, and especially a WOC. If this risks tilting a few key tens of thousands of votes, then what?

[callimara]

I don't know what to do.

When I tried talking to a close relative of mine about Palestine, they went on a spiel. They insisted that it wasn't genocide, that Isr*el had given them their land, that Palestine was warned about the Hamas and still voted for them, that Palestine struck first, that Isr*el warned them and gave them time to move south before Isr*el attacked. They insisted the support for Palestine is spurred on by propaganda!

When I asked my relative for proof, they dodged the question, claimed they've known about the whole thing about Isr*el and Palestine for a very long time, and said something about something being in the quran.

Now I'm torn and I'm not sure what's true anymore!

I have so many asks to go through, but I think this one is very important to answer.

To start, I think you are very brave for asking questions and trying to find the truth amidst all the propaganda, so here's what I know.

For some context, I am an Indonesian, and Indonesia and Palestine have very close diplomatic relations and share many similarities in history. We were both colonized and had to resist occupation in a white supremacist world where you are seen as lesser if your skin isn't white and savages/terrorists if you resist or if you want your land back.

Palestine was also the first to recognize Indonesia's independence in 1945, and Indonesia has built a hospital in Gaza that is one of the last ones currently standing due to relentless Israeli bombardments.

People who have gone through oppression recognize oppression. And so far the only people I have seen supporting Israel have been people who had been indoctrinated with Zionist views from childhood, people who are NOT educated on the history of Israel (and why they were there in Palestine to begin with and it is NOT because of the holocaust, which I will explain further down), and Evangelical Christians who want to bring on the rapture. Even then, what they are so angry and appalled by are people calling to send aid, and their only argument for not allowing aid into Gaza because they will be used to create weapons and rockets.

They genuinely believe that Palestinians have a magical ability to turn things like food, water, and medicine into rockets.

So, I will go through your relatives' points one by one.

Firstly, it is not a religious issue. And it never had been. This is colonization and apartheid. Do not let the media or uninformed people tell you otherwise, because that is how they justify and defend its existence.

Israel gave them their land back

Lots of Israelis say that Israeli forces completely pulled out of Gaza in 2005. That isn't 'giving land back' that is 'withdrawing from taking more land.' The entirety of what is now Israel WAS Palestine, and Palestinians aren't even asking for ALL of it back, just the borders that they had in 1967.

Also, if you're wondering why they pulled back, it's because you cannot bombard your own occupied territory, which we see them doing freely now.

Palestine was warned about Hamas

Really? That's so funny because Hamas is backed and funded by Benjamin Netanyahu (his own words at a press conference with an Israeli news cite, not mine) and his US minions to try and oppose the PLO (Palestine Liberation Movement), who were seen as a more legitimate governing body that would make Israel and the US look bad for trying to eradicate them. So, they chose a more extremist group that they'd have an easier time selling as "barbaric terrorists" as a justification to bombard Gaza with impunity. If this sounds familiar, that's because it should. It's all part of their playbook.

Palestine struck first

This did not begin on October 7th. This has been going on since the Nakba in 1948. What happened on October 7th was tragic, but it was IDF bullets that killed those hostages. It took them 6 hours to respond (a survivor said that Hamas had to ASK them to call the IDF, because they were not coming), and when they came, they killed their own civilians and hostages in the crossfire. Watch this video for the full evidence.

Hamas took hostages for a hostage swap. For the thousands of Palestinian civilians that had been kidnapped and wrongfully detained (some of them WITHOUT CHARGES) in Israeli prisons, which included KIDS. And as of now, Israel has rejected the Israeli hostages 3 times even though they are killing them in the bombardment.

Israel has something called the Hannibal Directive. Go look it up.

Because no one in their right mind would agree that just because there is a school shooter hiding inside a school with hostages while using the students as human shields, the only course of action is to then bomb the entire school.

And ask yourself, if this is truly a war on Hamas and Israel valued Palestinian civilian lives as much as they do Israeli lives, then if Hamas was hiding in Israel, would the IDF be using the same approach as they are currently using for Gaza? And if not, then why.

Israel warned them and gave them time to move south

They gave 1 million people 24 hours to complete a trek that would have taken 72 hours. 1 million people who had mostly been women, children, and the handicapped. And during the evacuation, they were bombing convoys, ambulances, and safe routes. Then when they finally got to the south of Gaza, they were bombed there too. In the place where they were supposed to be safe.

Also, if Russia had warned Ukraine that they were going to bomb them and gave them time to evacuate, does that then make it ok for Russia to bomb Ukraine? Of course not, that's a silly argument.

The support for Palestine is spurred on by propaganda

Well, which one between Palestine and Israel literally has the entire western media in their pocket? Which one has been PAYING influencers to voice their support for their country? Which one has been proven to spread LIES unquestioned? (Like 40 beheaded babies, for instance? Or using AI generated images for proof?) Which one has been posting tweets proudly declaring that they have committed war crimes, deleting the tweets, and backtracking?

Which one has fucking social media accounts that are beefing with models and celebrities who are against them, and are using influencer's images without their permission to make it seem like they're on THEIR side?

So now, let's talk about Israel and Holocaust Survivors.

First of all, the creation of a Jewish state in Palestine began in 1917 when Britain signed the Balfour Declaration, which states that they are giving away their occupied colony of Palestine to a group of Zionists immigrating to Palestine from Eastern Europe and Yemen. First thing to note here, there were already Palestinians living on the land, it was not a barren empty land, and it was colonized by the British. So the British gave away stolen land that they had no right to give away in the first place.

The holocaust survivors didn't arrive in Israel until the end of WW2 in the 1940s where they were then scorned and laughed at by the Zionist settlers in Palestine for being 'weak victims.' The holocaust victims continued to be discriminated against and left to live in poverty by the Israeli gov't.

However, their arrival gave the west a reason to arm the settlers so that they can 'defend themselves' from all the 'vicious, evil, uncivilized Arabs' they were surrounded by. And they used this excuse and dehumanization to displace 750,000 Palestinians from their land. The Nakba.

And they continue to use the holocaust survivors (that they are also treating badly) as a shield from international criticism to expand until we have the borders we have today.

[loving-n0t-heyting]

Hamas has refused to allow elections in Gaza since 2006. Not just Palestinian National Authority elections, mind you. No open elections for any office have been held in seventeen years. Palestinian rights to free elections and self-determination have been denied by Hamas. [3] (And good luck to anyone who tries to blame that on Israel, because elections were held by the PNA in the West Bank in 2012, 2017, 2021 and 2022. It's Hamas's intention alone to purge democracy.)

How in the fucking hell am I seeing this bit of misinformation surface again and again? THE ELECTIONS HAVE BEEN SUSPENDED BY MAHMOUD ABBAS OF FATAH, DIPSHITS. A fact partly acknowledged even by the freedom house page linked as a source:

Comprehensive PA elections were planned for 2021, but Abbas canceled them that April, citing Israel’s refusal to allow PA election activity in East Jerusalem.

Ordinarily I charitably assume this take is just a sort of kneejerk “Hamas bad” impulse without going so far as to lift up fatah et al in its stead but here its impossible to deny the obvious: the PA in the west bank is being presented as the civil, preferable, democratic alternative to the terrorist theocratic alternative of hamas. Without going so far as to celebrate or approve of every action taken by Hamas, surely the recent history of democratic suppression and any familiarity with the horrifying state of the West Bank since oslo might give some indication of why many Palestinians prefer and support Hamas when forced to choose?

[iamnmbr3]

One of weirdest disconnects (but far from being the only one), I see from the left in regards to Israel is that jews have no claim to the land, are colonizers and oppressors, but at the same time make long ass rants about how native americans had their land stolen from them, deserve to claim it back and get reparations and all that. And the disconnect here is that jewish people, as a group, are native to the region of Israel, their ancestors literally built a country there after escaping slavery, lived there for a long ass time but were eventually kicked out by the Roman Empire, and after thousands of years of being persecute and not felling safe returned to their ancestral homeland, to reclaim and rebuild what was stolen from them. Isn’t that what people say we owe native americans? Or indigenous groups that were kicked out of their lands in general? Yes, in their thousand year absence other peoples built their lives around the region of Jerusalem. Yes, Palestine deserves to be recognized and it’s citizens to have decent lives like everyone else. Should Israel never have existed, or cease to exist? No! There’s plenty of room for both peoples to have their countries, the jewish people belong there too and history proves they need a nation to serve as a refuge! Their land was returned to them by British after WW2, since they legally owed it after the fall of the Byzantine Empire, and while the partition could have been better, after all the horror’s jewish people had experienced it’s hard to blame to UN for giving it a go. Honestly, this whole situation just shows how dumb, hateful, bigoted, misinformed and disingenuous a lot of people in the left are. It’s easy to say that the Hogwart’s Legacy game is anti-jewish, that supporting it gives power and money to evil people and then harassing people that want to play it (which is dumb all around, as pretty much all the other hot takes and boycott to that game), but when it comes down to actually standing with jewish people and showing empathy? Nah, that’s too hard for them. It’s all performative. It’s easier to jump on the hate train and say they deserved what H*mas did to them, it gives them more likes.

Yeah. So many people on the Left are all "land back" until it's time to say land back for Jews. Kind of like how a lot of the Left shouts "believe all victims" about sexual assault till those victims are Jewish. I mean would anyone on the Left call any of the recognized sovereign nations of indigenous people in North America ethnostates that need to be abolished? Or say indigenous people still trying to get back a piece of their ancestral lands should stop because it was too long ago now? The hypocrisy demonstrates how deeply antisemitic views have seeped into parts of the Left. Which we cannot allow.

Jews are indigenous to the Levant. Both Israelis and Palestinians have a claim to the land. Israel exists. That's a fact that won't change. Any workable longterm peace must find a compromise solution that acknowledges both Israeli and Palestinian needs. Any other solution will simply result in more bloodshed (which a lot of "activists" in the West seem more interested in...probably because it's not their blood being shed).

[jewreallythinkthat]

How can Israel be allowed to exist after citizens literally rioted over the fact that IDF soldiers might be punished for raping a prisoner? And after government officials defended that rape? Not to mention those who repeatedly blocked aid going into Gaza with no punishment.

Hi Nonnie.

Firstly, thanks for actually posing this as a question rather than just hurling abuse at me.

So, having extremists in a country - both civilians and in government - does not mean that a country has no right to exist. We literally have had fascist riots in the UK (caused by the English Defence League) the past few days based around misinformation which have targeted mosques and these are horrific but do not mean the UK should be dissolved. Expecting a country which does things that are bad, or has horrific fascists in government to be dissolved as punishment is not only nonsensical but also never going to happen. It's an ideological purity position which does nothing to help anyone.

Additionally, you never see anyone saying Iran should be dissolved for torturing women to death for wearing the hijab incorrectly, or hanging people who say things the regime doesn't like; you don't see people say the USA should be dissolved because lawmakers tried to stop aid going to Ukraine and ICE were putting children in cages and tormenting asylum seekers and immigrants. You cannot hold Israel to a higher standard than other countries.

In terms of what I've seen about the rape of prisoners, it's fucking horrific. It's unconscionable and must be condemned unequivocally - no ifs, no buts. This is a especially important topic to me personally as a man who has been sexually assaulted. The government ministers protecting them are far right extremists. They are awful people and I hope one day, soon, they will face severe consequences for their actions. The same goes for the civilians who tried to protect the perpetrators.

Those blocking aid should be punished for it. The aid situation is actually really quite complicated despite what a lot of online sources they to portray it as. The Standing Together food convoys being blocked was pretty much a manufactured issue by ST refusing to comply with rules about declaring and clearing aid so it could be sent in. They knew it would be blocked and they did it anyway. (There is a post about this from an ex member of ST which is around somewhere and I'll link back here if I find it).

The nationalist extremist citizens blocking aid are despicable however if they are saying "no aid in until our hostages come out" do you understand why they might take that viewpoint? I do not agree with it but I certainly can see why people might get to that position. I appreciate the whole of Gaza is in crisis however I can understand why people may see this as their only way to protest and try and force Hamas to release hostages (unfortunately it seems like Hamas cares even less about the lives of the average Palestinian than they do about the average Israeli.)

The fact that Hamas also steels aid, there are literal videos of this happening and Hamas attacking starving Gazans trying to get the food, and this goes ignored by so many people does not help. Now I would say that if 90% of the aid is stolen by Hamas, at least 10% gets through and that's better than nothing in my opinion but at the same time, if no one is condemning the aid being stolen and in some cases sold back to Gazans at huge prices to make more money for Hamas, then whats the point in trying to have a civil conversation.

If someone refuses to see that there are Terrible People on both sides, people who really showcase how low humanity can sink, then how can sustainable peace ever be achieved for Israelis and Palestinians.