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becausegoodheroesdeservekidneys · 1 year ago

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Clownfall: Endgame

I am calling it that in the full knowledge that batshit things may yet happen, but listen. Listen. We have a year left before the general election. I am hedging my bets and assuming all that comes in that year will be Tory manoeuvring ahead of that. Let's all hope for a nice quiet year in which everything can fall neatly under that banner, that won't ruin this naming convention.

Previous Reading

Important Terminology - Required Reading

What is a Whip?

How do Whips work?

Shadow Cabinet

Front Benchers, Back Benchers and the Cabinet

What do we need to call an early General Election?

The Adventures of Big Dog the Clown - Suggested Reading

Part One

Part Two

Part Three

Part Four

Elanor’s Guide to Liz Truss - Suggested Reading

Character-based prequel

The Premiership of Liz Truss

The Next Steps - Suggested Reading

The post-Truss contenders

Bye Matt

BoJo Resigns as MP

Alright, that's probably everything. Just nice to have it all in one place, innit? If you would like a nice soothing soundtrack to your reading, here's my recommendation. On with the show!

Clownfall: Endgame

Wednesday

So, let's start with charismatic and charming Home Secretary Suella Braverman! You may remember her from such hits as "Quitting before she could be fired after breaking the law only to be rehired by Sunak almost immediately and without consequence to appease the right wing nutjobs in the party", and "Claiming Pakistani men have a culture that makes them work in abuse rings to target vulnerable white English girls" (I should add that, if you are unfamiliar with Suella Braverman, regardless of what that quote implies, she is not, in fact, white); recently she made the news because she announced that being homeless is a "lifestyle choice". So true, Suella! They could give it up any time they wanted. They could, for example, get together and break in and steal your fucking house.

But in particular, here we're focussing on her recent stance towards the multiple huge pro-Palestine marches that have been taking place in London. So far she has indicated that she wants people who wave Palestinian flags to be arrested, so that's very measured and rational of her; but, last Wednesday (Nov 8th), she decided to write a lil opinion piece in the Times all about how mean and biased and liberal the police are. This is an absolutely fascinating assertion to I suspect literally anyone who has ever been involved with the police. But no! Quoth Suella, aggressive right-wing protesters are "rightly met with a stern response", while "pro-Palestinian mobs" are "largely ignored".

And, she claims, the march on Saturday isn’t simply a cry for help for Gaza, but an "assertion of primacy by certain groups - particularly Islamists - of the kind we are more used to seeing in Northern Ireland".

Imagine how well all that went down.

Thursday

You are underestimating how that went down, because it emerges that Suella deVille did not, in fact, get any form of validated sign-off or permission from Number 10 before squirting her ill-informed liquid horseshit all over the front desk of the Times news room, and that, Tumblrs, you'll be surprised to learn, is actually quite an important and compulsory part of criticising the police when you are the Home Secretary. Like, there is a Ministerial Code about this. It is very clear. It is in Article 8.2, Tumblrs. Thou Shalt Have Permission From Number 10 Before Making Media Interventions.

“The content was not agreed with Number 10,” a spokesperson for Prime Minister Rishi Sunak told reporters, referring to the prime minister’s Downing Street office. The ministerial code is clear that any ministerial media interventions need approval from No 10.

-AlJazeera

And the Tories are furious! The bloodbath forms quickly and loudly and the hounds start baying! Clown noses are flying everywhere! The factions are drawn! Because even now, there are Tories too stupid to understand that whether you agree with someone or not they still have to follow the rules! Also the other parties realise they can offer some actual opposition here, given that Suella has essentially dragged a barrel into the middle of the House of Commons dressed in a fish costume, handed around a set of loaded rifles, and then crawled inside to wait. The result is that the calls for her resignation are both deafening and pleasingly cross-party.

"(This is a) dangerous attempt to undermine respect for police", says Labour's shadow home secretary Yvette Cooper. "(It's) irresponsible," says London mayor Sadiq Khan. "The PM's weakness when it comes to standing up to Suella is the most shocking thing in all this," claims a senior Labour source.

They're wrong, of course. The most shocking thing is Liberal Democrat leader Sir Ed Davey realising he can actually appear in the paper if he plays this right and so surfaces to attempt some politics. "(Sunak) must finally act with integrity by sacking his out-of-control home secretary!" he declares, frightening many MPs who had forgotten he was even in the room with them.

Meanwhile, several Tories approach the BBC anonymously.

"The home secretary's awfulness is now a reflection on the prime minister. Keeping her in post is damaging him," says one. Another straight-up describes her as "unhinged". Another claims the comparison with Northern Ireland is "wholly offensive and ignorant", and really, all of this is permanently triggering that "Heartbreaking: the worst person you know just made a great point" reaction image.

Saturday

Hey, speaking of reaction images, look, Labour has a go:

Well. They tried.

BUT! Do you want to know the INTERESTING bit??!

Enter: Nadine Dorries! Mad shrieking pink harpy who spends her days maintaining a BoJo shrine in her bedroom! Always the most hinged of politicians, let's see what she has to say.

Former cabinet minister Nadine Dorries claimed Ms Braverman was trying to get sacked to give her a platform of martyrdom in service of the right-wing. "The competition is on now for who is going to be the leader of the opposition," Ms Dorries told the BBC.

???!??!?

PERTINENT POLITICAL OBSERVATION FROM DORRIES?!?!?? The most shocking part of this whole affair. Remember that time she yelled at a journalist during an interview about Boris Johnson's latest scandal when he asked her how Johnson was feeling about the whole thing and inadvertently implied they were having an affair when No One Asked? God, wonders never cease. She's even acknowledging the Tories can't win the next GE, look. I'd say this is growth, except I am 100% positive she's just being catty about BlowJo being fired again.

Anyway, the real Saturday issue: it's Armistice Day, and there's a pro-Palestine march planned.

Now, to give context, Armistice Day has a creepy level of patriotic state-worship attached to it in the UK. Some time in October everyone on telly suddenly starts wearing a poppy, and if you don't you get hanged, drawn and quartered by (a) the British press, and then (b) a baying mob outside your living room. You most be performatively sad. You must perform reverence and hero worship and say things like "Never again" all while whole-heartedly supporting current wars. You must talk about "our brave boys", and share the works of dead poets from the trenches, and then completely fail to absorb any of their lessons. If anyone tries to wear the white poppy to distance themselves from the current political appropriation while still commemorating the millions of conscripted casualties, you accuse them of being "woke" and pissing on the worthy dead of WW1. It's a whole thing, and politicians love using it as an excuse to point fingers and mock each other for being insufficiently patriotic if they wear the wrong tie to the ceremonies, or choose to walk with actual veterans rather than a head of the current army, or any number of other things. And then on November the 12th they'll order a drone strike or something.

So, off the bat, you can see how a pro-Palestine rally on the same day was likely to be seen as provocative to some.

"Some" included Sunak! He didn’t (publicly at least) ask the police to ban the protest, but did call on organisers to call it off, claiming the choice of date was “provocative and disrespectful”, because as I say, a march calling for the ceasefire of a genocide is super disrespectful to every sad dead poet in a trench who dreamed of a ceasefire so they could live, or something.

But the inevitable therefore happens, which is that far-right activists agree that it's disrespectful, and so decide to violently target the march to show their respect for the idea of peace on Armistice Day, or something.

Here's the planned route by the organisers:

Note, though, that the Armistice ceremony happens at the Cenotaph - visibly nowhere near the march. These two events actually wouldn't have overlapped, if it weren't for far-right protestors deliberately linking them to stop them being disrespectfully linked, or something.

And that's exactly what happened. From the Guardian:

Perhaps the most striking incident, though, was when far-right protesters charged past police who sought to hold them back from the Cenotaph. In this video, a man shouts “this is fucking our country” in celebration. Whereas the pro-Palestine march had been excluded from the area as a precaution, the far right was not; by overwhelming the police, they supposedly sought to defend the site from an enemy that simply wasn’t there.

(that's quite a good article of the whole thing, actually, I recommend giving it a read.)

Crucially to the clown show, though, several politicians and others accused Suella deVille of emboldening the far-right, which... well, several of the far-right protestors straight up said was the case on the day, so hard to disagree, really.

Rumours of a reshuffle in Whitehall circumnavigate the land so fast the truth gets sucked into a tornado and is declared MIA. Here's the thing! I've covered a few Cabinet reshuffles by now, Tumblrs, you know the drill. Reshuffles are always deniable until they actually happen – so if, say, a reshuffle was going to happen on Monday 13 November 2023, there’d be no need to publicise it in advance. That way, if things change and politics happen, you don't need to retract anything :)

Because, remember: reshuffles are always controversial. Yes, some people get demoted, and those people will often kick off, and some people who don't deserve it get promoted, and lots of people kick off. But the big thing is that a lot more people get overlooked for promotion.

His most ardent supporters would say that Rishi Sunak is a cautious man (if you'll allow me a moment to express my own view on the matter, Tumblrs, if you'll forgive this crumb of personal opinion amongst my otherwise impeccable journalling of greatest integrity, I once did a teambuilding task with my students where they had to build the best possible bridge out of uncooked spaghetti and pieces of marshmallow, and I personally would liken the structural integrity of his spine to the losing team's entry), and reshuffles will spread a lot of disappointment to Tory MPs who lose – or fail to gain – a cabinet position.

So, all in all... regardless of Suella's idiocy...

There's no guarantee of a reshuffle. Rumours are just that - whether they prove to be true or not remains to be seen.

Week Commencing Monday 13th November, 2023

New week, new challenges! And it's going to be a big week this week. On Wednesday (tomorrow, at time of writing), three big things are going to be announced, and these announcements will colour everything else this week:

One. The Supreme Court decide whether the government will be allowed to enact their plan to send some migrants claiming asylum in the UK to Rwanda, a signature Braverman plan that human rights campaigners (including many in Rwanda) have been trying to block for ages.

It’s a massive deal anyway – a flagship government idea that’s been bogged down in the court, and we’ll finally have an answer one way or another. For what it’s worth, the Tories aren’t confident about winning it, either. The optimists among them reckon it’s a 50/50 chance, the pessimists reckon it’s 70/30 against, so it's iffy at best.

But here's the thing!

Plenty of Tories have always disliked Suella. Others could handle the odd outburst she has, but can’t stomach the sheer number of them lately - the Lib Dem non-entity man was absolutely right that she is rapidly growing out of control and just does not know when to shut the entire fuck up.

Which means! If the Supreme Court allows the Rwanda plan, Braverman could become emboldened, like a far-right protest injuring police officers to defend the cenotaph from people who are nowhere near it and have no interest in it. Do we want an emboldened Braverman?? Well; no, obviously. I also don't want dysentery, or rotten meat, or a serial killer in my neighbourhood. But it's a question even Tories are asking themselves, which is notable.

Plus, even if the court allows it, there will still be months of planning, and lawyers might still prevent the plans in the long run... But psychologically, the issue is this: the government wants this win, but probably doesn’t benefit from Braverman feeling victorious.

Two. We’ll get inflation figures. The government promised to halve inflation, and it seems likely they’ve managed this. Expect them to massively celebrate this, to distract from the promises they haven’t kept e.g. waiting lists in England, competent governance, etc.

Three. Voting on a ceasefire in Israel seems likely for Wednesday. It’s the SNP’s idea, and it won’t affect government policy (they won’t support a ceasefire – they claim it’ll empower Hamas).

But it’s a big deal for Labour, even more so than the Tories. A Shadow minister has already resigned over the war. A bunch of frontbenchers want a ceasefire, but that isn’t Keir Starmer’s policy, a man who is calling for the colours of the Israel flag to be shown at sports matches to show that "we stand in solidarity with Israel", because you can really count on Starmer to fuck up everything he touches. So what do they do? Abstain? Claim they had a prior commitment?? We might see more resignations, basically. Big day for Starmer.

So! With all that in mind...

Monday

8.43am

Oh look. Timestamps are back. I wonder if that suggests anything?

Suella Braverman is sacked as Home Secretary.

But! Sunak is accused of waiting too long! Which he demonstrably did!

He should have made the decision after the illegal article that she shouldn't have written and triggered a far-right rally on fucking Armistice Day. Instead, remember that 'cautious' descriptor I talked about?? He waited until the tide had turned against her completely, and now looks like he (a) was too much of a useless wimp to fire her until he was sure people would still like him and pat his dick and tell him he's a Good PM, and (b) only fired her because he caved in to that appalling lefty liberal cabal that somehow these days includes the Metropolitan Police of all fucking people, and she'd have been able to stay otherwise.

Shout out to the best comment from Reddit:

u/nowonmai666: Doesn't she normally get sacked on a Friday so she can have the weekend off before being reappointed?

Anyway, that's the big risk now: Braverman’s supporters can claim she was only fired because Sunak caved in to the left.

8.56am

Tory MP Andrea Jenkyns claims Sunak only sacked Braverman because he caved in to the left.

9.00am

Neil O'Brian, Pharmacy Minister, quits to live out his stated dream of being a back-bencher with less power.

*sus*

9.09am

Nick Gibb, Schools Minister, quits to live out his stated dream of being more diplomatic, or something.

*sus*

9.42am

The Lib Dems decide to build on the success of their leader getting to be on telly for his one comment on Thursday and call for a general election. Says Ed Davey: “It was the Prime Minister’s sheer cowardice that kept her in the job even for this long. We are witnessing a broken party and a broken government, both of which are breaking this country.”

Good job! They're having such a good few days.

Anyway remember the Tories don’t have to have a general election until December 2024, though, thanks to the Fixed-term Parliaments Act (2011), which was passed by the coalition government of Tories and, um, Lib Dems. In which Ed Davey served for three years.

Hmm.

9.43am

James Cleverly (remember him?) returns to the Cabinet and is appointed Home Secretary. The party attempts to appear trendy by experimenting with emojis:

This appointment is probably because Tory strategists wanted him in a domestic role to help the party’s chances in the next election; as Surprising Political Pundit Nadine Dorries told us, of all fucking people, the race is now on to lead the opposition.

But hey, this is not likely to lead to any more changes -

10.03am

FORMER PRIME MINISTER, BREXIT-TRIGGERER AND PIG-FUCKER DAVID CAMERON BECOMES FOREIGN SECRETARY

!!!!!!!!!!!!

And look! Another emoji! They're so hip!

(Side note... the balls on this one are astounding, actually. The UK political system has been in chaos ever since Cameron, and he was the first domino. This is not a well-loved former hero that will be greeted warmly by the unwashed masses.)

Awkward though, since just last month Sunak claimed that we’d lived through “30 years of a political system that incentivizes the easy decision, not the right one.” It would be a terrible shame if a journalist was to ask David Cameron whether he agreed with the Prime Minister on that, given that Cameron’s job is to support the Prime Minister now.

Especially since Cameron took to Twitter last month to explicitly criticise Sunak for breaking the Tory promise to deliver High Speed 2.

(Cameron tweeted this criticism last month. Labour MP Angela Rayner however promptly retweets it now lol suck a dick Dave, but try a human one this time)

Also, fun fact, Cameron has just come out of a large-scale lobbying and corruption scandal. Given the state of Sunak, though, that's actually probably what got him the job.

BUT!!! Here's an even funner fact: the man is not an MP. He left politics after he accidentally triggered Brexit and then it came out he'd once face fucked a dead pig's head while it was held on the lap of another Tory; he's been living it up in the lucrative world of after-dinner speaking, as these people do.

So can you do that?? Can you hold a Cabinet position if no one at all has voted for you??

Yes, turns out.

Don't be alarmed by that, though:

But, convention holds that anyone who becomes a Cabinet member while not being an MP needs to be a Peer - that way, if they do bad and naughty things, they can't be held accountable by the House of Commons but they can be held accountable by the House of Lords. Only problem is, Hameron is not a lord...

10.13am

The reshuffle, bafflingly, continues. Jeremy Hunt will remain as chancellor.

For the first time since 2010, the top four positions in government – Prime Minister (Sunak), Chancellor of the Exchequer (Hunt), Home Secretary (Cleverly) and Foreign Secretary (Cameron) – are all held by men.

10.18am

Lots of people tweeting about the historic context of Cameron’s appointment. Here’s my favourite:

10.48am

David Cameron is given a life peerage, so his proper name now is Lord Piggledick.

10.52am

Health secretary Will Quince quits. He wasn’t planning to stand for re-election anyway though, so this one is probably not a shock. But it's important that no one else resi-

11.04am

Decarbonisation minister Jesse Norman resigns.

...

Time for a

✨Conspiracy Theory✨

Between Quince and Norman – as well as Neil O’Brien and Nick Gibb – we’re seeing several mid-ranking ministers resign, despite being generally regarded as fairly competent.

It’s possible they were fired in private, and they’re publicly resigning to save face. But here’s another theory.

MPs aren’t allowed to seek commercial employment for six months after resigning from the government.

So hypothetically, if you were going to lose your seat in a general election, you’d want to have resigned six months earlier so you can still get a job.

If that’s what these guys are doing, it suggests we’re on track for a May 2024 election...?

11.05am

11.12am

Remember Cameron's financial scandal? Quick background here: David Cameron was specifically vice-chair of a £1bn China-UK investment fund.

So let’s see what throwback former leader Iain Duncan Smith thinks of Cameron’s return:

“I am astonished at this appointment. It seems to send a signal to China that we are pursuing business with them at all costs and any costs. Those who have been sanctioned now feel more abandoned than at any time. Those facing genocide and persecution will feel more abandoned than at any time.”

I cannot believe I am about to say this.

But.

I agree with Iain Duncan Smith *spits on floor*

11.50am

Former Tory deputy prime minister Lord Heseltine is asked to sum up the return of Cameron, and says it’s the “clearest signal that the sort of right wing lurch that we’ve seen and the anti-European movement that we’ve seen has been put to bed, and that will get a message across to people”.

12.13pm

A Tory MP is worried that Cameron’s return will turn back the clock on Brexit and Johnson’s election.

“It is very alarming. I am predicting a softening on small boats, a softening on legal migration. I would not be surprised if the ban on conversion therapy returns.”

... Don’t threaten me with a good time.

Anyway, let’s see how the public actually sees Cameron compared with other PMs!

Yeah, not sure people will mind if Cameron’s not Boris Johnson.

12.43pm

ITV political editor Robert Peston walks past a minister of state. The minister’s on the phone, but takes a moment to heatedly shout at Peston, “The PM just sacked me!”

I guess some days are easier than others as a journalist

12.47pm

Therese Coffey resigns as environment secretary!!!!

*choirs of heavenly angels sing*

You'll remember her of course, Tumblrs - she was one of the thugs manhandling people into the 'right' voting lobbies to force their vote on the day of Liz Truss' fracking law. Rumour has it she still has the Whip handle in her ass.

A lot of people seem to be resigning today! But don't be fooled. In almost every case, it’ll be because they were told to resign. They’ve been sacked, but they resign to save face. A last mercy from their benevolent leader.

My guess: Tessie here is terrible at media skills, so – get rid of her before she hurts general election chances. This, too, is a pattern.

12.52pm

Rachel Maclean sacked as Housing Minister! Fun fact, numbers fans: it took Doctor Who 33 years to make it to eight Doctors, but since the 2019 election, the Tories managed eight Housing Ministers in just under 4 years

trololol

1.15pm

Jeremy Quin quits as Minister for the Cabinet Office.

1.37pm

Times Political Editor Steven Swinford reports that No 10 is struggling to find a new housing minister (owing to rumours the job is cursed). Several people have turned it down, including Jeremy Quin. It is incredible to me that they didn't line someone up before sacking the last guy.

Kemi Badenoch and Michael Gove are apparently unhappy that Rachel Maclean was removed from the role. I for one do not care about the opinions of Kemi Badenoch or Michael Gove.

2.04pm

Health Secretary Steve Barclay becomes Environment Secretary. This is effectively a demotion for him. It is our 5th Environment Secretary in four years. Chasing that Housing Minister record! It took 19 years for Doctor Who to have five Doctors

2.15pm

Richard Holden appointed new Conservative Party chairman.

A 2019-intake Tory MP, he led the charge against Sir Keir Starmer over Beergate, which did damage Starmer a bit (albeit not much, given that it turned out Starmer had complied with lockdown regs, and the accusation was nakedly to try and distract from Partygate). So this appointment looks like more strategy to win the next election - someone not known enough to be hated, with what passes in the modern Tory party for a proven track record.

This could be a sign that the Tories intend to at least try to shore up the Red Wall votes? As unlikely as the Tories are to keep those seats.

That said, Holden’s seat disappears in a boundary change next election, sooooo … we'll see what they do there.

2.24pm

Victoria Atkins appointed Health Secretary, replacing Steve Barclay who’s moved to Environment Secretary. She's a relative unknown but also considered actually competent. Massive middle finger to Steve Barclay

2.37pm

Laura Trott (formerly in pensions) promoted to Chief Secretary to the Treasury.

2.42pm

Science minister George Freeman resigns.

3.18pm

YouGov conducts a snap poll: is the appointment of David Cameron as Foreign Secretary a good decision or a bad decision?

Good decision: 24%

Bad decision: 38%

Don't know: 38%

So that's going well

3.24pm

Greg Hands is made a business minister after losing the Tory chairman role.

John Glen moves from chief secretary to the Treasury to become the Minister for the Cabinet Office and Paymaster General.

3.39pm

With Cameron being a Lord now, he’ll be based in the House of Lords rather than the Commons. The most recent Cabinet Minister to be based in the Lords was former Brexit minister Lord Frost, who did weigh in on the matter:

“[T]hough I was not running a whole Department too. I don’t think it works well to have a lead Cabinet Minister answering questions and defending their Department solely in the Lords. The Lords is not a fully party political environment - nor should it be - and voters are owed proper political scrutiny. In our system, that can only happen in the Commons.”

I cannot believe I am about to say this.

But.

I agree with Lord Frost *spits on floor*

The SNP had already called this out, with MP Stephen Flynn claiming, “The UK is not a serious country.”

4.21pm

Conservative MP Lee Rowley appointed the 16th housing minister in the past 13 years. Even counting David Tennant twice, that's more than all the Doctors Who we've ever had, and that took almost 60 years.

5.16pm

Sky News’s Tamara Cohen reports that Sunak sacked Braverman by phone this morning! Downing Street says there won’t be any exchange of letters between them - this is almost unheard of. Politics runs on paper trails! Everything happens through formal letters! By phone!

It means we’re denied insight into their differences. But Cohen reckons we’re likely to hear from Braverman on Wednesday, as the Supreme Court rules on the Rwanda scheme.

6.03pm

Tory MP Andrea Jenkyns, former Education Minister, submits no-confidence letter in Rishi Sunak.

It's almost like, in the absence of Dorries, she's decided that someone needs to step up and have a tantrum and that someone might as well be her. It is, actually, an extremely funny letter, as these letters go. Normally they're written with a sort of furious earnestness wrapped in formal language. I presume that Andrea Jenkyns MP, former Education Minister, was aiming for something similar, and the first paragraph manages it. But by the end you sort of start to wonder if this was supposed to be a letter she wrote with her therapist to get her feelings out:

My favourite line, when pulled in isolation, is "Yes Boris Johnson, the man who won the Conservative Party a massive majority, was unforgivable enough."

Yeah, Andrea babes. You're bang on there.

6.05pm

Esther McVey is appointed as Cabinet Office minister. Not a full cabinet member, but she will attend cabinet meetings.

This is notable: unlike a lot of today’s appointments, she’s on the right of the party. Her role will be to represent the government on TV and radio as much as possible, talking about gender/culture/British colonial history issues (i.e. she’s anti-woke and a screaming bigot).

In other words, with Braverman gone, McVey is an offering for the populist right of the party to try to appease them.

6.15pm

Sunak tweets about the new cabinet, claiming they’ll make “the right decisions for our great country, not the easy ones.” So it looks like that’s the new slogan, and we're pressing on with austerity

6.27pm

Tim Loughton, a Tory MP on the “One Nation” wing (i.e the David Cameron side) responds to Andrea Jenkyns’s letter of no-confidence by tweeting:

“Where can we submit a letter of no confidence in the Pantomime Dame?”

(It’s Andrea he’s publicly referring to as a pantomime dame there. A lil joke from the Tories for you)

6.31pm

Paul Scully sacked as minister for London. Didn't know that one was a position.

9.43pm

Sunak says that only a two-state solution will allow a new future for Israel/Palestine. This is, um, not what the Prime Minister of Israel wants. Who knows whether the Prime Minister of Israel will survive this crisis anyway – but these are big words from Sunak. Cameron’s influence? Maybe? Interesting either way

10.03pm

And then - PLOT TWIST!!!

According to ITV political editor Robert Peston, a senior government source reveals that Cameron was approached on TUESDAY.

Which means plans were underway to get rid of Braverman not only before the far-right violence on Saturday, but before her anti-police article on Wednesday. It seems she lost her job not because of what she said about police after all; but because she claimed homelessness was a lifestyle choice.

Well well.

11.05pm

And the day finishes with Andrea Leadsom back in government (as Under Secretary of State for Health and Social Care) which nobody saw coming! Pretty demeaning to the other 300 Tory MPs who could have been given this.

The final response from numerous Tories: they are feeling jilted and insulted because David Cameron being brought back when he's NOT EVEN AN MP, RISHI suggests that they themselves are not good enough to be in government.

No one tell them

#politik #clownfall: endgame

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still-searching-for-something · 9 months ago

Text

I want to go back to how things were.

I want to go back to when I believed that the progressives were on the right side of history, fighting against oppression in all its forms, and had critical thinking, honest compassion, and understanding in a way that the right--inundated with racist conspiracy theories and absurd lies--did not.

In many ways, I'm a perfect demographic fit in the pro-Palestine circles. I'm bisexual. I'm a young university student who's been progressive for as long as he knew what progressivism was, and I never experienced genuine economic insecurity or wondered if I'd eat that night. In another timeline, maybe I'd be there marching and shouting their horrible slogans. But there's one, teeny little thing that ruins it, which makes me fall through the cracks and renders me politically homeless, outcast by the progressive left and the MAGA right.

I'm a Jew.

And I'm trying so, so hard to hold compassion for the suffering of minorities who have not extended us that same compassion. I'm trying to maintain my progressivist urge to go out and help minorities in solidarity, but it's so hard when they make it clear that they hate us and want our state dead and gone. I supported BLM, but Al Sharpton, Leonard Jeffries, Alice Walker, James Baldwin, Louis Farrakhan, Malcom X, Jesse Jackson and many others either were or are wildly antisemitic, especially Sharpton and Walker, and so are the BLM movement's leaders, who openly sneered at Jews for being shocked by them by announcing, "I guess their activism was just transactional. How (((Zionist))) of them!"

And the queer community forced me out of their ranks for merely questioning whether the war in Gaza is a genocide, for pushing back against them saying that Hamas is fighting oppression. And spread antisemitic lies about me, claims of harassment and supporting genocide to my friends because I dared to question them. And they've chosen to side with those who would throw both of us off roofs for being queer. Cast out by the outcasts.

Like, what do I do? Our only allies are Hindus, Iranians, Kurds, Republicans, and Christian Zionists (respect to all of these groups for that... even you Republicans. This is one of our only points of agreement). That's literally it. No loud show of from indigenous nations supporting what is effectively the most successful anticolonial land back movement in human history. No push from "antiracist progressives" against rising antisemitism and genocidal terrorism from a reactionary fundamentalist group against a historically discriminated group.

And they aren't even just leaning back and being silent--many members of these groups are being actively antisemitic--especially the progressive left, which has morphed into the most antisemitic mainstream political movement since the Nazis. Instead, we're 'Zionazis' and genocidal colonizers who aren't even oppressed anyway, that's just evil Jewish Zionist lies designed to stoke sympathy for their unrelentingly evil nature, which we can't even help. The notion that Jews are intrinsically predisposed to evil acts and deception--never heard that one before.

So now, when I look at pictures of Pride Parades, a celebration of an identity of which I am a part and would have previously killed to attend--I wonder... would I be allowed to hold up a rainbow flag with a Magen David on it? If I asked any of their views on the state of Israel, what will they say? What about on Zionists who support its existence? Would all parts of my identity be respected, valued, and celebrated? Or would I be forced to leave the Star of David flag at home, pretend I don't notice their antisemitic views, and pass the litmus test of disavowing Israel before being accepted?

I feel suspicious and wary of the very community which I am 'supposed' to belong in. I feel uncomfortable. I hate, hate, hate that I feel this way. That I've become more closed, more cynical, more angry. Those of us who fall through the cracks, who hold multiple marginalized identities--queer and Jewish, black and Jewish, Indigenous and Jewish--we are ignored and silenced, our voices and experiences entirely spat upon as being a front for 'Zionist crimes' or whatever new buzzwords they create.

I've decided that first and foremost, I am Jewish. The me that was proud to be a part of the queer community is dead. I want to support the progressive causes of antiracism and social justice, but they hate us. They want us dead. They wouldn't view my participation as being a genuine gesture of solidarity, but an evil Jew Zionist seeking to con them and co-opt support in order to aid our evil apartheid genocidal settler-colonialist white supremacist illegitimate entity in a land that should really be given to Hamas anyway.

How am I supposed to hold space for other minorities when nobody is holding space for us right now?

#antisemitism #jewish #jumblr #leftist antisemitism #left wing antisemitism #jewblr #antizionism #progressivism

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matan4il · 7 months ago

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I am at a loss for words.

A Jewish woman in Paris was kidnapped, held for several days, and raped for being a Jew, and her mother was psychologically taunted and tormented, as "revenge for Palestine."

And while the perpetrator is the main person responsible for this horrific crime, every single person denying or justifying the Oct 7 sexual violence is guilty of contributing to this normalization, making this antisemitic terrorist think his excuse is in any way an acceptable justification for this atrocity. Every single person who didn't believe Jewish victims, every single person who demanded proof, but turned a blind eye to the visual evidence Hamas terrorists themselves provided, every single person who called the films and pictures and testimonies from countless Israelis "propaganda," every single person who justified it and claimed that "rape is resistance." They're all complicit. They all have to know they've helped make Jews everywhere in the world less safe.

Speaking of complicity, even though a UN report found credible evidence for the sexual crimes committed by Hamas on Oct 7 and against Israeli hostages since, the UN secretary general, Antonio Guterres, has personally decided to leave Hamas out of the annual report on sexual violence in conflicts around the world. Israeli commentators expressed their belief that this was done, because had it been included, then the UN would have no choice but to finally recognize that Hamas is a terrorist organization. The UN is complicit. Guterres is complicit. Hold them accountable.

Speaking of the UN's known anti-Israel bias, what a surprise, their report on UNRWA, their own agency, claimed not to support the charges against it, though they did find that UNRWA has "some issues" maintaining its neutrality...

Just to make it clear, "staff publicly taking sides" refers to UNRWA employees being openly anti-Israel, antisemitic and pro anti-Jewish violence, and the "problematic content" in UNRWA textbooks is incitement to terrorism and educating Palestinian kids to be antisemitic. This alone constitutes more than "some issues with neutrality." But there's more. Out of the 12 Gaza UNRWA employees first identified by Israel as having participated in the Hamas massacre, at least three were killed inside Israel on Oct 7 itself, and at least one more was captured on film while helping to kidnap an Israeli young man's body from an Israeli kibbutz into Gaza using a vehicle with UN license plates. I'd say that's a bit more than "difficulties with neutrality". In fact, the UN itself implicitly recognized the evidence was damning, or it would not have fired nine of the twelve right away, and admit a tenth UN worker was dead following the invasion and attack on Israeli communities, while claiming they're still "clarifying" the identities of the other two killed employees who participated in the Hamas massacre. BTW, it's been about 3 months of the UN "clarifying" the identities of those other two dead employees (screenshot below is from the article published 2 days ago, link with same claim on "clarification" is from Jan 27).

UNRWA is complicit. There are other humanitarian aid NGOs, which can do better. Dismantle UNRWA. But we know the UN will not be dismantling the cash cow that this agency is, even though no other refugee group gets an equal treatment to that. At what point do we say out loud, that if more and more UNRWA employees are found to be complicit in a massacre or being embedded with Hamas, if Hamas terrorists have continuously used UNRWA infrastructure to store weapons and shoot at Israelis, if UNRWA was found to be providing a terrorist organization with internet and electricity, and if the UN can't hold its own agency accountable, then the UN is also complicit in UNRWA's collaboration with Hamas?

In Israel itself, as the biggest Jewish community in the world is celebrating Passover, attacks on Israeli Jews continue.

Two days ago, on the Eve of Passover, a combined terrorist attack took place in Jerusalem, in an ultraorthodox neighborhood, with two Palestinian terrorists driving their car into a group of visibly Jewish young people, then the attackers left their car and tried shooting at their victims, but the weapon thankfully malfunctioned. Three people were lightly wounded. (the vid below shows most of the attack, but not the graphic parts of the car hitting the young Jewish men)

youtube

Yestrday, the Lebanon-based terrorist organization Hezbollah launched three suicide drones at Israel's northern communities, along its Mediterranean shore. This attack comes on the heels of the news that out of 18 Israelis wounded in a previous Hezbollah drone attack on an Israeli Arab Bedouin town, one has died from his injuries, after fighting for his life for 5 days. It's 27 years old Dor Zimel, an officer who was stationed in that town to protect it. Dor was set to get married next month, and he had proposed to his fiancee with a ring donated by a bereaved father (his son, 23 years old Addir Messika, was a jewelry designer, and the ring was one he designed before he was murdered by Hamas terrorists at the Nova music festival on Oct 7). Dor's organs were donated and saved the lives of 7 people, including an injured soldier, who's also the father of a girl. May Dor and Addir's memory be a blessing.

And today, on the second day of Passover, an attempted stabbing attack was stopped before the Palestinian female terrorist managed to harm anyone. She was neutralized at the scene.

I'm sure all those who decried Israel having to continue its war against Hamas during Ramadan are being extra loud about this wave of anti-Jewish violence during Passover, which is actually just a partial list of the on going attacks on Israeli Jews during this holiday.

In other news, the preparations for the IDF's ground operation in Rafah have actually already started. Reports suggest 250,000 Palestinians who have come to the southern city as they left other war zones in Gaza, have already left Rafah, and that Israel has already started building encampments to house those it will evacuate from the city before the ground operation begins.

Trying to remember when have I ever seen an army building an entire camp city for the enemy's civilian population. I'm coming up blank.

This is Miri Gad Mesikka.

She lives in kibbutz Be'eri, together with her husband Eli and their 3 kids. On Oct 7, they locked themselves in the bomb shelter from the invading Hamas terrorists. They were in there for 12 hours, fighting for control of the bomb shelter's door, until the terrorists set their house on fire, and the Gad Messika family had to make an impossible choice: stay and maybe suffocate to death from the smoke (or worse if the fire got in), or jump from their second floor window, probably be injured and maybe be shot to death by the terrorists. Eventually, they chose to jump out. They all got injured, and one of her sons got his leg broken, but the terrorists didn't spot them, and this decision saved their lives. During the time they were locked inside the bomb shelter, Miri recounts how she would see some of her friends and neighbors not responding anymore, and she couldn't know why. She kept hoping it was because their phone batteries ran out. "Today I know some of them were being kidnapped, while others were being murdered. It was a massacre, happening in countless different spots at the same time." One of her friends told Miri, that her daughter, a baby who was less than one years old, was shot in the head right in front of her. Then the friend's husband was murdered as well, and despite being shot with a bullet in her lungs herself, the friend somehow managed to get herself and her two other kids away.

Never forget.

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

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littlemssam · 5 months ago

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Since not everyone saw my latest Statement on Discord yesterday, I wanted to post it here as well, and I also want to clear a few things up.

For those who do not know what this is about, I made a post that I should not have, or at least I should have phrased it in a way where the meaning is clearer. The Post I made was "Since I was one of those that got tagged in there, I can just say that I will not partake in any Anti Israel Pro Hamas Propaganda, and I will most certainly not forget what Hamas did Oct 7th like a lot of these ppl seem to do." I now see that the way I phrased it made it seem like I feel that the attacks on Palestinian Civilians were/are justified, and that is not what I meant, and I am deeply sorry about that. Edit: To make it clear I am against the Israel Government and Netanyahu, just like I am against Hamas. I am pro ceasefire now.

On June 25th I had to face the consequences in my Discord. A lot of ppl came in and confronted me about it. When the first ppl joined and started the confrontation, I did knee jerked again and banned the first three of them, because one of them insulted me and wrote that the attack on Oct 7 was made up. There were a few follow up bans of ppl, who also insulted me, but I did not ban anyone on purpose because they are Pro Palestine. There were also some Posts deleted that should not have been. It was not done by me personally, but I was also not fast enough and clear minded enough to stop it and I could not undo it, so I apologise for that as well.

I locked the Server down in the End, because it was 3 am for me and I was, and still am, very overwhelmed and exhausted, and the Server will stay down for a while. This is the latest Statement I made, and I know it will not be enough for everyone and I respect that.

"I did not mean to seem to take a stance that seems like I am pro-Israel as if I believe this is all their land (a Zionist). I do not want to condone the violence happening in the country right now or pretend that Palestinian lives don't matter. It was never intended in what I said. I did not mean to phrase things in a way that make me seem to be against the problems palestinians are facing in Gaza. I inserted myself into something I don't know enough about or how to talk about in an educated way, so I should have better not said anything at all. I am sorry that I did. I do feel it is wrong that some people feel like what happened on October 7 is fake and I have already had people say it is. I have banned people who have said so while attacking me. That is wrong. Those people died and it's sad, so too it is sad the people who are dying over the military actions of Israel in attacking the groups who did this causing a loss of Palestinian life without considering who will be hurt. I am not a Zionist. I am just someone who felt sickened by what happened in the attacks last year and didn't like how I see some people pretending that is all a hoax."

#littlemssam #info

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ugh-yoongi · 1 year ago

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so sorry it took me a few days to get this together for you, but i hope you enjoy some of these!

most of these works contain mature themes/content. please heed tags and do not engage with any explicit work if you are a minor!

i'm sure there are a bunch i've forgotten, so please feel free to reblog and share your own work and your faves!

also, please note: there are a lot of fics on these lists that are posted to ao3. it has recently come out that a volunteer was removed from their position for being pro-palestine (you can find the twt thread here). i am in the process of looking for a better alternative, but until then, it is unfortunately probably the best way to share these stories. while i personally won't be posting to or reading on ao3 for the time being, how you choose to engage going forward is completely up to you! i just wanted to make sure i was being transparent.

hobi x reader

guarded & kanalia by @xjoonchildx — basically anything by ana lbr

just practice & we float by @anotherbtswriter

gone wild by @johobi

liar, liar by @eoieopda

party on you by @here2bbtstrash

do i wanna know? by @yoongiphoria

started with a spark, now we're on fire by @the-boy-meets-evil

renegade by @junghelioseok

midnight confessions by @snackhobi

cry to my room by @kithtaehyung

matters of the heart by @hobidreams

plant boy by @gukyi

sunlit affair by @ubemango

the art of war by @wwilloww

not today, satan by @gimmethatagustd

the wood by @sailoryooons

virtuoso by @hamsterclaw

even though by @moni-logues

anything by @dilfhoseokie

upbeat

for the first time (what's past is past)

same old mistakes

tip 143 (for ∞ seconds of love)

as always, mxm fics (aka me being embarrassing sope trash) under the cut!

member x member

little miracles by @here2bbtstrash (jihope)

you're not mine, but you're the best (jihope) ⭐

i only always think (jihope)

you made me dream when i couldn't sleep (jihope)

walk the walk (jihope)

polaroid (jihope)

a midnight clear (jihope) ⭐

got an offer you might refuse (jihope feat. jin)

i don't want it at all (jihope feat. jin)

please be my finale (sope) ⭐

i've been calling your name (in this whole universe) (sope)

nothing without sunlight (sope)

same damn hunger (sope) ⭐

hot fuss (sope)

i'd love it if we made it (sope) ⭐

rub your feelings down my spine (sope)

kiss me hard before you go (sope) ⭐

how easy this should be (sope)

all my days (i'll know your face) (sope)

those ocean eyes (sope)

leave you drowning (until you reach for my hand) (sope)

reputation (sope)

snapshots from the breakdown (sope) ⭐

the best is yet to come (sope)

my hands down your pants (no homo) (sope)

first times and stuff & an experiment in threesomes (sope feat. jk)

at least i got you in my head (hopekook)

10/10, would do again (hopekook)

bone + tissue (hopekook)

telepathy (rapline)

delta (rapline)

i get those goosebumps every time (rapline)

i'm on fire (rapline)

when the moon rises (namseok)

how i'm imagining you (namseok)

in your atmosphere (namseok)

why don't you figure (my heart) out (namseok)

the universe needs more you (namseok)

bated breath (2seok)

smile like you mean it (2seok)

gingerbread (2seok)

cowboys love horses (2seok)

natural gnosis and the chaos therein (2seok) ⭐

telepathy for virgins (2seok)

⭐ = personal mxm favorite. please read any of these and return to scream over them with me.

#hoseok x reader #jhope x reader #hobi x reader #jhope fanfic #hoseok fanfic #jhope smut #hoseok smut #bts fanfic #bts smut #fic rec

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starbird06 · 7 months ago

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tw// Discussion of Pro-Israel propaganda and the genocide in Palestine

Okay... as a Sonic fan, I cannot recommend the Knuckles series. Sure, the plot's not good... but there's a much more disturbing reason: The Pro-Israel propaganda (Especially Episode 3). In the episode, we meet Wade's (Knuckles' friend) family, and they (particularly the mother) make a big deal about being from Israel... they go really far with it. If it was just them being Jewish/it was only the religious traditions, that would be different. However, it is pointed out that the mother is from Israel, and the episode REALLY paints the country in a positive light. Considering the genocide Israel is committing in Palestine at the moment... it is clear why this is problematic. In addition, they also compare Knuckles'/the Echidna Tribe backstory to Jewish culture (and even make a Holocaust joke) which is so wrong for so many reasons. As a whole, the episode made me very uncomfortable the whole time. I am having a hard time processing the fact one of my favorite series did something like this. Sonic the Hedgehog characters, especially someone like Knuckles, would NEVER support a genocide... they're always supposed to defend those who can't help themselves. Yet this episode... seeing Knuckles connect with a person from Israel who's portrayed as innocent/inspiring... it feels REALLY messed up to me. Also, Paramount delayed this series from late 2023 to early 2024... which makes me worried that this could've had something to do with it. Either way, please do not watch the Knuckles series. Especially without pirating. Free Palestine.

#free palestine #palestine #sonic the hedgehog #knuckles the echidna #knuckles series

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makingqueerhistory · 3 months ago

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hi, i sent an ask ages ago asking you to not platform certain transphobic genocidal bloggers as if they are in good faith. and i've never seen a response but you've reblogged the post in question multiple times since. so i'm just wondering what's up w that

Yes, I remember you, you were on anon before, nice to see you again! If I am correct what you are refering to is me answering a question that came from someone who was a zionist asking about my stance on Palestine. Well here is the thing, I try to approach most questions asked of me in this project as if they were in good faith.

I knew it was unlikely to change anyones position, but a part of being an educational resource is trying not to write off anyone.

The question being referred to was from a zionist, which I knew upon trying to check for the context as the question itself confused me a little in its phrasing. I also am aware that engaging with zionists is not always the right choice. I don't know that it was the right choice this time, but I can walk you through my thought process and you can make your own judgement.

I specifically decided to answer that question on that day because it had been sitting on my heart for a minute. When it came in, it immediately made me uncomfortable.

I knew it might cause a bit of a backlash (which it did), but I realized that it was an opportunity to make clear my stance on free Palestine. I have made a couple of posts, but because I try to stay in my lane they had not been as direct as I wanted to be on here (though other social medias had more obvious moments), and I had not had such a direct question yet. I knew for me it was important to clarify that from everything I have learned and explored in both history and current events, a free Palestine is a necessary and urgent call. I also wanted to take a second to reframe the question.

I had gotten backlash for posting some amazing Jewish people because they are pro-Palestine, and I wanted to take a moment to make it clear that I learned to love and dedicate my time to free Palestine from Jewish people. In all the intentional obfuscating it is often portrayed as if Jewishness is synonomous with zionism which is a dangerous claim and an untrue one.

It's also necessary for me to say, I did not know that persons entire past. I knew that they were a zionist from a cursory look on their blog, but I learned after posting that they were rather notorious. If I had known their reputation before, I may have chosen not to answer. But I also think there is worth in answering a question honestly, no matter the asker.

If you still disagree with my choice, I understand and respect that. I am still not sure I made the right choice, but if I am being truthful, I have seen the impact of the answer I gave and it seems to be quite positive. Most people were glad to hear a clear stance from me, and the person in question got added to many blocklists on that day.

#answered

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a-b-riddle · 1 month ago

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Boundaries

Just to address a few things

Scroll to the bottom to see the gist of it but if you had any questions about certain things that are okay/not okay.

Taglists: You won’t get blocked for asking lol. I know it’s a common thing, but I just don’t do it. It’s hard enough to have the motivation to post and so many of you ask to be tagged in the next part that it’s a lot for me to keep up with.

Negative comments: I like criticism when it helps. If all you’re going to say is “hey, this sucks” I’m gonna block you lol. I don’t get paid to do this. But if you are saying “hey this makes me think reader is white or black or less ambiguous” point. it. out. Please. If it is going to help me improve my writing or your experience reading it, say something. If you don’t wanna comment, message me. But being like “your characters are pieces of shit” doesn’t help and idgaf about listening to your opinion on that. But if something makes you feel out of place or I should have put a trigger warning and forgot, tell me.

Update?: I will no longer respond or engage with readers who ask for an update on the chapter and that’s it. Not what you liked or that you liked it in general. I appreciate the enthusiasm, but I won’t engage in a simple ‘when are you updating?’ in my asks. If you say “I liked _____.” “I can’t believe they ____” along side it, that’s perfectly okay.

Rudeness: you’ll be blocked. This isn’t goodreads. I’m not getting paid for this. This is a hobby. If you shit on my hobby, I will block you. If you are rude to other readers, you will be blocked.

Spamming with likes, comments, reblogs: I’ve said it once and l’ll say it again. You are not being annoying. You are not making me upset by going through my blog and reblogging whatever you want. I love that you are finding content you enjoy whether I wrote it or not. Idc if I get 99+ notifications because of you or see your name pop up on a daily. I do not mind. Quite the opposite 🫶🏻 don’t feel like you’re ever being annoying for trying to engage.

Requests: my requests are always open, but I may not always get to it. Right now I have 243 asks 💀 but you’re always welcome to send asks. Even repeatedly with different scenarios.

Political/religious views: my political and religious views are not always reflected in my writing, but I’ll go ahead and clear the air. Personally, I don’t think I could go through with an abortion or write about it, but I have literally offered to pay for abortions for my friends or hold their hand if that’s the route they chose. I am pro choice. From what I have read and my understanding of the situation, I am pro-Palestine. I am anti-military, pro-veteran. I am left leaning. I am a Catholic trying my best. I celebrate other religious holidays with my friends like Diwali and Ramadan when I can. I don’t care who you love as long as it’s not a minor.

In short, ways to get blocked:

Being rude to me

Being rude to others

Trying to argue about how a story should be written

Trying to bring your own politics onto MY blog.

Finding out you’re a minor.

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unsolicited-opinions · 28 days ago

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Read this again today for the first time in a year and it's still one of the best pieces I've read on this topic.

It is long, but I urge you to read it.

(Pasted here unedited so nobody needs to visit Musk's platform, formerly known as Twitter.)

Isaac Saul

11:26 AM · Oct 10, 2023

People ask me all the time if I am "pro-Israel" because I am a Jew who has lived in Israel, and my answer is that being "pro-Israel" or being "pro-Palestine" or being a "Zionist" does not properly capture the nuance of thought most people do or should have about this issue. It certainly doesn't capture mine.

I have a lot to say. I’ve spent the last 72 hours writing, texting, and talking to Israelis, Jews, Muslims, and Palestinians. Much of my reaction is going to piss off people on "both sides," but I am exhausted and hurting and I do not think there is any way to discuss this situation without being radically honest about my views. So I'm going to try to say what I believe to be true the best I can.

Let me start with this: It could have been me.

That's a hard thought to shake when watching the videos out of Israel — the concert goers fleeing across an empty expanse, the hostages being paraded through the streets, the people shot in the head at bus stops or in their cars. I went to those parties in the desert, I rubbed shoulders with Israelis and Arabs and Jews and Muslims, I could have easily accepted an invitation to some concert near Sderot and gone without a care, only to be indiscriminately slaughtered. Or, perhaps worse, taken hostage and tortured.

I don’t believe Hamas is killing Israelis to liberate themselves, nor do I believe they are doing it to make peace. They're doing this because they represent the devil on the shoulder of every oppressed Palestinian who has lost someone in this conflict. They're doing it because they want vengeance. They are evening the score, and acting on the worst of our human impulses, to respond to blood with blood — an inclination that is easy to give in to after what their people have endured. It should not be hard to understand their logic — it is only hard to accept that humans are capable of being driven to this. Not defending Hamas is a very low bar to clear. Please clear it.

It’s not possible to recap the entire 5,000 year history of people fighting over this strip of land in one newsletter. There are plenty of easily accessible places you can learn about it if you want to (and, by the way, many of you should — far too many people speak on this issue with an obscene amount of ignorance, loads of arrogance, and a narrow historical lens focused on the last few decades). But I'll briefly highlight a few things that are important to me.

In my opinion, the Jewish people have a legitimate historical claim to the land of Israel. Jews had already been expelled and returned and expelled again a half dozen times before the rise of the Muslim and Arab rule of the Ottoman Empire. Of course it’s messy because we Jews and Arabs and Muslims are all cousins and descendents of the same Canaanites. But Arabs won the land centuries ago the same way Israel and Jews won it in the 20th century: Through conflict and war. The British defeated the Ottoman Empire and then came the Balfour Declaration, which amounted to the British granting the area to the Jewish people, a promise they’d later try to renege on — all before the wars that have defined the region since 1948.

That historical moment in the late 1940s was unique. After World War II, with many Arab and Muslim states already in existence, and after six million Jews were slaughtered, the global community felt it was important to grant the Jewish people a homeland. In a more logical or just world that homeland would have been in Europe as a kind of reparation for what the Nazis and others before them had done to the Jews, or perhaps in the Americas — like Alaska — or somewhere else. But the Jews wanted Israel, the British had taken to the Zionist movement, the British had conquered the Ottoman Empire which handed them control of the land, and America and Europe didn’t want the Jews. As a result, we got Israel.

The Arab states had already rejected a partitioned Israel repeatedly before World War II and rejected it again after the Holocaust and the end of the war. They did not want to give up even a little bit of their land to a bunch of Jewish interlopers who were granted it all of a sudden by British interlopers who had arrived a hundred years prior. Who could blame them? It had been centuries since Jews lived there in large numbers, and now they wanted to return in waves as secularized Europeans. Many of us would probably react the same way. So, just as humans have done forever, they fought. The many existing Arab states turned against the burgeoning new Jewish state. One side won and one side lost. This is the brutal and broken and violent world we live in, but it is what created the global world order we have now.

Are Israelis and British people "colonizers" because of this 20th century history? Sure. But that view flattens thousands of years of history and conflict, and the context of World War I and World War II. I don’t view Israelis and Brits as colonizers any more than the Assyrians or the Babylonians or the Romans or the Mongols or the Egyptians or the Ottomans who all battled over the same strip of land from as early as 800 years before Jesus’s time until now. The Jews who founded Israel just happened to have won the last big battle for it.

You can’t speak about this issue in a vacuum. You can't pretend that it wasn't just 60 years ago when Israel was surrounded on all sides by Arab states who wanted to wipe them off the face of the planet. Despite the balance of power shifting this century, that threat is still a reality. And you can't talk about that without remembering the only reason the Jews were in Israel in the first place was that they'd spent the previous centuries fleeing a bunch of Europeans who also wanted to wipe them off the face of the planet. And then Hitler showed up.

American partisans have a narrow view of this history, and an Americentric lens that is infuriating to witness. As Lee Fang perfectly put it, "Hamas would absolutely execute the ACAB lefties cheering on horrific violence against Israelis if they lived in Gaza & U.S. right-wingers blindly cheering on Israeli subjugation of Palestinians would rebel twice as violently if Americans were subjected to similar occupation."

And yet, many Americans only view modern Israel as the "powerful" one in this dynamic. Which is true — they obviously are. It isn't a fair fight and it hasn't been for decades because Israel's government is rich and resourceful, has the backing of the United States and most of Europe, and has an incredibly powerful military. At the same time, Israeli leadership has made technological and military advancements that have further tipped those scales — all while the Israeli government has helped create a resource-thin open air prison of two million Arabs in Gaza.

Conversely, Palestinians are devoid of any real unified leadership, and the Arab world is now divided on the issue of Palestine. Israel is unwilling to give the people in Gaza and the West Bank more than an inch of freedom to live. These are largely the refugees and descendents of the refugees of the 1948 and 1967 wars that Israel won. And you can't keep two million people in the condition that those in the Gaza strip live in and not expect events like this.

I'm sorry to say that while the blood on the ground is fresh. The Israelis who were killed in this attack largely have nothing to do with those conditions other than being born at a time when Israel and Jews have the upper hand in this conflict. Some of the victims weren’t even Israeli — they were just tourists. This is why we describe them as “innocent” and why Hamas has only reaffirmed that they are a brutal terror organization with this attack — an organization that I hope is quickly toppled, for the sake of both the Palestinian people and the Israelis. But as someone with a deep love for Israel, with friends in danger and people I know still missing, it breaks my heart to say it but I'm saying it again because it remains perhaps the most salient point of context in a tangled mess full of centuries of context:

You cannot keep two million people living in the conditions people in Gaza are living in and expect peace.

You can't. And you shouldn’t. Their environment is antithetical to the human condition. Violent rebellion is guaranteed. Guaranteed. As sure as the sun rising.

And the cycle of violence seems locked in to self-perpetuate, because both sides see a score to settle:

1) Israel has already responded with a vengeance, and they will continue to. Their desire for violence is not unlike Hamas’s — it’s just as much about blood for blood as any legitimate security measure. Israel will “have every right to respond with force." Toppling Hamas — a group, by the way, Israel erred in supporting — will now be the objective, and civilian death will be seen as necessary collateral damage. But Israel will also do a bunch of things they don't have a right to. They will flatten apartment buildings and kill civilians and children and many in the global community will probably cheer them on while they do it. They have already stopped the flow of water, electricity, and food to two million people, and killed dozens of civilians in their retaliatory bombings. We should never accept this, never lose sight that this horror is being inflicted on human beings. As the group B’Tselem said, “There is no justification for such crimes, whether they are committed as part of a struggle for freedom from oppression or cited as part of a war against terror.” I mourn for the innocents of Palestine just as I do for the innocents in Israel. As of late, many, many more have died on their side than Israel's. And many more Palestinians are likely to die in this spate of violence, too.

Unfortunately, most people in the West only pay attention to this story when Hamas or a Palestinian in Gaza or the West Bank commits an act of violence. Palestinian citizens die regularly at the hands of the Israeli military and their plight goes largely unnoticed until they respond with violence of their own. Israel had already killed an estimated 250 Palestinians, including 47 children, this year alone. And that is just in the West Bank.

2) Every single time Israel kills someone in the name of self-defense they create a handful of new radicalized extremists who will feel justified in wanting to take an Israeli life in retribution sometime in the future. Half of Gaza’s two million people are under the age of 19 — they know little besides Hamas rule (since 2006), Israeli occupation, blockades, and rockets falling from the sky. The suffering of these innocent children born into this reality is incomprehensible to me. They will suffer more now because of Hamas’s actions and Israel’s response, all through no fault of their own.

There is no way out of this pattern until one side exercises restraint or leaders on both sides find a new solution. Israelis will tell you that if Palestinians put their guns down then the war would end, but if Israel put their guns down they'd be wiped off the planet. I don't have a crystal ball and can’t tell you what is true. But what I am certain of is that every time Israel kills more innocents they engender more rage and hatred and recruit more Palestinians and Arabs to the cause against them. There is no disputing this.

So, why did this happen now?

I'm not sure how to answer that question except to say it was bound to happen eventually. It was a massive policy and intelligence failure and Netanyahu should pay the price politically — he is a failed leader. Iran probably helped organize the attack and the money freed up by the Biden administration's prisoner swap probably didn't help the situation, either. Israel's increasingly extremist government and settlers provoking Palestinians certainly didn't help. Nor has going to the Al-Aqsa mosque and desecrating it. Nor do blockades and bombings and indiscriminate subjugation of a whole people. Nor does refusing to talk to non-terrorist leaders in Palestine. Nor does illegally continuing to expand and steal what is left of Palestinian land, as many Jews and Israelis have been doing in the 21st century despite cries from the global community to stop. A violent response was predictable — in fact, plenty of people did predict it.

Israel is forever stuffing these people into tinier and tinier boxes with fewer and fewer resources. But if you want to blame Israeli leaders for continuing to expand and settle land that does not belong to them (as I do), then you should also spare some blame for Palestinian leaders for repeatedly not accepting a partitioned Israel during the 20th century that could have led to peace (as I do).

Please also remember this: Hamas is still an extremist group. The Palestinian people do not have a government or leaders who legitimately represent their interests, and it sure as hell isn't Hamas. Will some Palestinians cheer and clap at the dead, or spit on them as they are paraded through Gaza? Yes they will. And they have. Many will also mourn because they loathe Hamas and know this will only make things worse. This is no different than how some Americans cheer at the dead in every single war we've ever fought. It's no different than the Israelis who set up lawn chairs to watch their government bomb Palestine and cheer them on, too. This doesn't mean Palestinians or Israelis or Americans are evil — it means some of them are giving in to their violent impulses, and their zealous feelings of righteous vengeance.

Solutions, you ask? I can’t say I have any. If you came here for that, I’m sorry. The two-state solution looks dead to me. A three-state solution makes some sense but feels out of the view of all the people who matter and could make it happen. I wish a one-state solution felt realistic — a world of Israelis and Arabs and Muslims and Jews living side by side with equal rights, fully integrated and defused of their hate, is a version of Israel that I would adore. But it seems less and less realistic with every new act of violence.

Am I pro-Israel or pro-Palestine? I have no idea.

I'm pro-not-killing-civilians.

I'm pro-not-trapping-millions-of-people-in-open-air-prisons.

I'm pro-not-shooting-grandmas-in-the-back-of-the-head.

I'm pro-not-flattening-apartment-complexes.

I'm pro-not-raping-women-and-taking-hostages.

I'm pro-not-unjustly-imprisoning-people-without-due-process.

I'm pro-freedom and pro-peace and pro- all the things we never see in this conflict anymore.

Whatever this is, I want none of it.

Oct 10, 2023

#jumblr #criticism of israel #Israel #Palestine #Gaza #Hamas #i/p #i/p conflict #oct 7 2023 #pro israel #pro palestine

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