#listen hamas is in power because of the occupation

[gracetheacefromouterspace]

It’s so disheartening that all we can do as active genocide happens is protest our politicians who are sending weapons there to do it, pray that the aid you send to supplies organizations making deliveries in Palestine actually gets there and spreading knowledge to combat propaganda to try and get people older and in power to listen. I can’t imagine how it must feel to be a Palestinian living in the US right now, my heart goes out to all of you.

[bonyassfish]

I do think that you should mostly still listen to BDS as far as companies to boycott go, because companies like Re/Max and AXA directly profit from the occupation. The movement in general also has widespread support among Palestinians which should not be ignored. Boycotts, divestment, and sanctions are effective non-violent methods of ending colonial violence.

However, I find what BDS in general defines as “normalization” to be flighty at best and harmful at worst. BDS actively dismissing joint Israeli-Palestinian peace activist groups like OneVoice and Standing Together serves what purpose exactly?

The arguments I’ve seen against these groups range from “they support a two state solution” to “they don’t acknowledge the reality of the power imbalance between Israel and Palestine”. The first argument is true at times, but a lot of people are looking at solutions based on a more practical view rather than what is ideal or even fair. Personally, I’m in support of a single binational secular state with equality for all citizens and proportional representation in government, but that’s just me. I understand why so many people see the two state solution as more viable, though.

As for the second accusation, I don’t think it’s true. I do think that these groups are willing to acknowledge the violence done by Hamas, for example, and the losses suffered by Israelis, which maybe is what makes people annoyed. But it’s not a zero sum game. It’s a fact that innocent civilians have been kidnapped and murdered by Hamas. It’s also a fact that the IDF is an occupying colonial force with extensive and sophisticated weaponry and a large budget, while Hamas is a comparatively small militia.

The other argument I see is that these groups are too naive, that they don’t see reality. But I think it’s the opposite; I don’t think anyone who’s actually lived through this violence can be seen as naive. I think it’s a genuine recognition that this cannot last forever, that neither Jews nor Palestinians will leave, and therefore the only thing to do is to figure out a way to coexist peacefully.

It would be one thing if BDS said “we are ideologically opposed to these groups and choose not to actively support them”. But they and their supporters have made them out to be like covert liberal Zionists who are trying to trick activists. It’s absurd, these groups are pretty transparent and open about their goals and ideology.

I’m not saying you have to support Standing Together, or even agree with them. But to dismiss them completely is foolish and, in my opinion, counterproductive.

[girlactionfigure]

When I was in Germany, I traveled outside of Berlin to meet some Palestinian friends who were part of the diaspora community in the country. I hung out with several individuals from Gaza or who have family in the Strip and are part of a network of individuals and organizations that are pro-Palestine. I had extremely intense conversations with these folks, some of whom listened and agreed, some of whom strongly disagreed, some of whom were confused by what I was saying, some who agreed but didn’t see a path forward, and some who literally threatened to beat me up if I didn’t stop talking. Here's what I got out of those conversations:

1. Hamas’s resistance narrative is widely accepted and embraced by large segments of the Palestinian diaspora community, particularly those who are less integrated into the nations in which they live, especially if their environment is mainly made up of other Palestinians, aka echo chambers.

2. Intense emotions and feelings dominate the discourse and how people view the war, Israel, Hamas, the conflict, and any discussions of responsibility and a path forward. Trauma, sadness, anger, and feelings of sheer injustice control the way people see what’s happening, October 7, claims and counterclaims, and competing narratives.

3. Opposition to Hamas, and my views and sentiments were instantly associated with treachery, weakness, cowardice, and embracing “Zionist lies and propaganda.” Undeterred, I argued that not only is opposition to Hamas necessary, courageous, critical, and inseparable from opposition to Israeli occupation and injustices, but that we are in this mess partly due to our complicit silence and acquiescence to Hamas’s Islamist propaganda and destructive narratives that harmed the Palestinians more than any Zionist could ever dream of doing.

4. Misinformation about so many incidents and occurrences is rampant. This is particularly the case when it comes to boycotting things like Starbucks, Coke products, McDonald’s, and hundreds of other goods. The list of “forbidden” things is so huge and contains the most ridiculous of items, such as KitKat, hot sauce, and innocuous consumer products, all because they are perceived as directly supporting Israel, the war, or the IDF. When challenged about the accuracy of their information, almost no one wanted to hear about the futility of these boycotts and their nonexistent impact on the war and broader Israel and Palestine discourse.

5. Some were incredibly furious at me for challenging the “martyrdom” narrative, and one person threatened me with physical violence if I didn’t stop maligning martyrdom. Of course, I didn’t back down and proceeded to rationally challenge this idea of Gazans killed in the war after October 7 being martyrs with a ticket straight to heaven and that this is Islamist propaganda and brainwashing that’s getting us nowhere. I said that my family was killed for nothing and that most Gazans who lost their lives would have chosen life over being killed so that Hamas could maintain its corrupt and despicable rule over the coastal enclave.

6. A pro-resistance man surprisingly agreed with me when I told him that Hamas prevented civilians from evacuating Gaza’s north early in the war and didn’t want people to leave, a ruthless decision that caused unnecessary loss of life. This is something that many Western fools refuse to acknowledge: Hamas wanted Gazans to stay put so that they could be used as human shields by the group and frustrate the Israeli military’s operations by causing maximum civilian casualties.

7. Several agreed with me that Hamas is only interested in maintaining power, but in the absence of alternatives, they didn’t see anything wrong with this. When I kept saying that Hamas’s continued rule in Gaza means endless wars and more death & destruction, none seemed to have any meaningful responses beyond some mumbles and incoherent rants.

8. The military occupation of the West Bank and settlement expansion kept coming up over and over. Whenever I pushed on Hamas, taking responsibility, having to accept Israel’s existence & continued existence, embracing and rebranding peace, rejecting violence, what’s happening in the West Bank kept coming up. Folks didn’t see Gaza in isolation, but as part of a broader issue/conflict/problem that can’t be compartmentalized. “If Gaza were peaceful, stable, and developed,” argued one man, “the West Bank will still be occupied,” which, in his mind, necessitates Hamas’s “resistance.”

9. This is my own assessment and inference, but I truly strongly felt that support for Hamas was primarily driven by the lack of alternatives and the binary nature of everything related to the conflict: Fatah VS. Hamas; Israel VS. Palestine; Armed resistance VS. diplomacy and nonviolence; us VS. them; kill VS. be killed; Palestinian narrative VS. Jewish narrative. In other words, there was almost little to no ability to hold multiple truths, approach the issue with nuance and rational balance, and an entrenched belief that one truth must inherently be mutually exclusive and must by default cancel out the other. When engaged, however, some were willing to think differently.

10. There was clearly a high degree of conformity when people were together versus when I engaged individuals one-on-one. In other words, group settings made for largely unproductive and hostile discussions, while individual conversations were much more likely to be productive and change people’s minds and thinking. This is consistent with the universal trend that individuals are smart, groups are dumb; people are afraid to say what they really believe and think in front of others but are much more likely to speak their minds when anonymous, alone, or away from the “community’s ears and eyes” as one gentleman put it.

In summary, my conversations were difficult and quite depressing in some regards. However, these same unpleasant and discouraging conversations actually gave me hope that with respectful, patient, persistent, rational, calm, evidence-based, and analytical/non-emotional engagements and outreach, meaningful seeds can be planted to change hearts and minds and begin the 1000-mile journey towards political transformation and the arduous effort to rebrand peace and coexistence as a necessary evolution to preserve the Palestinian people on their lands and forge a different path forward.

[will80sbyers]

What are your thoughts about Noah’s stance on all of this? He is supportive of things that Amy Schumer is saying, he signed the thank you letter to Biden, he defends israels right to defend themselves and does not speak of genocide, of a ceasefire. He is young, I know, and I know it is the least of all the problems, of course, but I just can’t understand how he doesn’t see. How he doesn’t see what is wrong.

I don't think he's the child of Satan and I don't think he wants anybody to get killed really, but I think he's ignorant and biased from everything around him and has fallen to propaganda, probably because he went there and had a good experience + he's surrounded by Zionists lies... He thinks it's the only thing they can do to defend the people in Israel and is believing what Zionists say about how there's no occupation and Hamas is using ppl as human shields, etc

I also think he is scared because there has been an increase in antisemitism around the world and I can imagine that being a public figure that is doubled on him so he's blocking out anything that doesn't immediately make him feel safe

I don't think this justifies what he's supporting at the end of the day, he's not owed any fan to keep supporting him and I don't support his posts or actions at the moment, but I think the fact that he's scared + listening to propaganda it's an explanation and I hope he opens his eyes growing up and sees that the government of Israel is not doing anything that actually helps out its citizens in the long run and they don't want to protect Jewish people, they are racists and fascists that just care about having more and more power and are killing innocents

I also hope he analyzes his internal biases because there is a base of racism and islamophobia that I think we all as white ppl must see in ourselves to "deprogram" because we learn it in society unfortunately and I can see it in certain statements he made, it's completely valid to criticise him for that

In general I don't wish him anything bad and I don't support people that say he should kill himself or stuff like that, I don't see any real malice in how he acted just a bit of stupidity and following propaganda

This is not meant to "defend him", this is genuinely how I see the situation

[springcrafter]

Man, the Antisemites are getting bold.

Friendly reminder that "from the river to the sea" is a chant calling for the extermination of half the world's Jewish populace. Like. I cannot believe that in the Year of the Lord 2023 I have to risk being targeted only so I can come out here and explain this.

And mind you I live in this shithole, I speak Hebrew, I get to see the worst of the worst that Jewish Israelis are saying. I'm not gonna repeat it because it could be triggering, but I'm also not gonna sit here and pretend everyone here is a peace-loving hippy. The difference being that vile attitudes are called out and made into outliers in broader society.

(Notably, I saw this when I was taking shelter from rockets on the stairwell - I live in a predominantly center-right area and when someone said something vile they were reminded that the Palestinians in Gaza aren't all Hamas, have no control of their fate, and also have it 100% worse than we ever will)

Thing is, Israelis are not a monolith and a sizable majority are unflinchingly critical of our government. Netanyahu put us in this position and he has so much blood on his hands it's not even a point worth making. By dividing and conquering and pretending that senseless violence is a show of strength, he has made us weaker. We're terrified and traumatized and he continues to perpetuate that fear and trauma to capitalize on it. He was right when he said this was our darkest hour, and he was the one who brought us here. All because he wants to stay in power and avoid going to jail. Over here we loathe him and criticize him more than anyone outside of Israel ever could.

I'm not behind him. I condemn his use of extreme violence and his disregard for Palestinian lives. I know the warmongers from either side don't care about their civilians and are happy to get rich from our suffering but he could at least pretend.

Listen. Call me a hippy, but I believe that everyone who calls this sliver of land their home should have a right to live here in peace. I believe in the right of the Palestinian people to independence and self-determination. Thing is, in my experience, "Free Palestine" is a slogan so vague that it can mean different things and I'm rather wary of it. Do you mean "free Palestine from the tyranny of its leaders and the Israeli occupation" or "free Palestine from all the Jews and kick them all to the sea"? It has become enough of a dogwhistle that I stopped trusting it and by extension, anyone who holds these views while conveniently ignoring the atrocities of October 7 and the frankly appalling reporting around the al-Ahli Arab Hospital explosion.

(It's the same with Zionism, and why I don't affiliate myself with the movement. I believe in the right of Jewish people to self-determination and a home in their ancestral homeland, and I think the unabashed Antisemitism I've seen lately justifies that position, but I cannot approve of the atrocities that have been done to get here or people who support and justify them)

My point is, if the (otherwise legitimate) Free Palestine movement is going to harbor, shelter and encourage Antisemitism - all I can say from here is, I see you. And while I would love to go elsewhere, alas, I'm stuck here, so that's not going to change.

(ETA: Thank you to the person in my replies for proving my point)

[clinicsharmartia]

People trying to use the LGBTQ+ community as a reason not to support Palestine is disgusting. The way they say this with their whole chest as if they think that's an actual, valid excuse as to why you shouldn't support innocents being carpet bombed is diabolical.

"You'd get stoned if you went to Palestine!!" Do you realise how out of touch and delusional you sound? Where did you get this information from? Where are the statistics and data charts to prove it? Or is this just a racist assumption that you've created based on your views of Muslims, Arabs and Middle Eastern countries? Homophobic people live and thrive in every single country, no matter how progressive they claim to be.

When the news of October 7th first came out and Zionists were rushing over to me with this excuse, I said "why is that relevant?" Now that I am more educated on the matter and history, I see people still using this excuse and now I ask "why is that relevant?" Stop using our name in vain. Stop pretending that you actually care about us. What you are doing and saying is not only hurting and further isolating the Palestinians and their suffering, it is also making our community more vulnerable to hate and bigotry as you are making it seem that all queer people care about is ourselves and our comfortability.

There are multiple counter arguments to this. I've picked a handful of them to share with you.

Palestine doesn't have a government. I don't know where people got this idea that they do, but they don't. (To my knowledge from my own research) They have (had) systems and groups and organisations but they don't, and since occupation, have never had a legitimate government with different political groups that you can democratically vote for. There is the PA (Palestinian Authority) that holds some power in the West Bank, but they can't actually do anything and most of the Palestinians who live there say that they are a burden. ("What about Hamas- not a political group). So please explain to me how they are supposed to make pro-queer and trans laws if they don't have a government? Also, and I can't stress this enough, people are not their governments. To all the countries that say they stand with Israel, there are hundreds of thousands of people saying no we don't. Rishi Sunak, prime minister of the UK, stated that he stands with Israel and that he is going to send them aid to help them fight back and defend themselves. A week later, 500,000 people showed up in London to protest for a ceasefire and the rights and freedom of Palestinians. If you actually spent two seconds to listen to stories of queer people/couples that have visited the West Bank you will hear that to some, this was their most welcoming and accepting experience abroad, and to all, there was not a moment they felt scared or ashamed.

Is that really what they're meant to be prioritising right now? The comfort and safety of an American twink? The entrance to Al-Shifa Hospital, the largest hospital in Gaza which is holding reportedly 30,000 people who are injured or displaced, was bombed by Israeli airplanes, killing 15 and injuring 60. Two other hospitals holding thousands of people also experienced bombing around them. They have bombed bakeries, schools, refugee camps, one of the oldest standing churches in the world, as well as over 50% of all residential buildings and many, many more places. The death toll has risen to almost 10,000 including 4,000 children, and this isn't even including people who weren't killed by bombing. Israel has dropped more than 18,000 tonnes of explosives on Gaza, an area that is only 41km long and 6-12km wide. They had to use ice cream trucks to hold dead bodies because of how stuffed the morgues were, but now, their dead are being buried in mass graves where they are forced to preform improper funeral rituals. They have run out of food, water, clothes, medical supplies. Doctors are having to preform surgeries using an iPhone flashlight because electricity has been shut off. Doctors are having to use vinegar as antiseptics because they've run out. People are forced to get medical procedures done, to GIVE BIRTH, without any pain-killers. But yes, of course, while Israel is using white phosphorous bombs on them they are supposed to be thinking about what they can do to better their society.

There are queer Palestinians living in Gaza right now, and they are experiencing the exact same thing non-queer Palestinians are. Israel is not prioritising them, they are not making their bombs so they can detect who's gay so the bombs can avoid them, they are not moving them out of Gaza and to a 5-star hotel somewhere safer. Israel's aim is to eradicate ALL Palestinians. This includes the queer ones. And they are crawling and screaming and begging, bloodied and bruised, for you to listen to them and support them and help them, yet you turn a blind eye and cover your ears while continuing to yell about the rights and lives of queer people.

Who told you that Israel is a queer friendly country with queer friendly laws? The Jerusalem Post, a news outlet in Israel, reported that in 2022 anti-queer hate crimes increased by 11% since 2021. Here is the link, which provides more information on homophobic crimes in Israel in 2022. Israel hasn't legalised gay marriage or gay adoption and a survey done in 2023 shows that 43% of Israelis strongly oppose gay marriage. What part of that is queer friendly? What part of that screams "gay haven"?

Pinkwashing has been used for decades to try and justify the genocide in Palestine. Don't let it get to you. Your activism shouldn't be conditional. If you actually think that bringing queer progressiveness into a conversation about colonisation and genocide is appropriate and a good thing, you should be thoroughly ashamed. Free Palestine means freeing ALL Palestinians.

[sethshead]

If anyone wonders why I'm so hard on "pro-Palestinian" maximalists who will reject any independence that is not river-to-sea or which rejects full "right of return", this is why. I want Israel out of the West Bank, and that can only happen as part of a comprehensive plan for peace and mutual recognition between Israel and the Palestinians.

The occupation corrupts Israel and empowers millenarian religious zealots. I want to see the settler movement crushed and civil, not religious, law prevail in Israel. i know there are many who want to see the occupation last long enough to "sharpen the contradictions" of Zionism, under the belief that violent, racist, expansionist settlers are the inevitable end form of Zionism. I find this argument silly and offensive. By the same logic, one could argue against Palestinian national aspirations by claiming that Hamas's murder and rape spree on Oct. 7 is the inevitable and ultimate expression of Palestinian identity. That would be racist to say, as is the same when said of Jews. Instead, Hamas and the settler extremists are what happens when legitimate desires lose their direction.

Israel, for the sake of its own society, cannot continue to tolerate settler encroachment, intimidation, assault, and murder against Palestinians, because all those habits have been and will be turned on fellow Jews as well. Palestinians live on the land and deserve a state of their own, no less and no more than do Jews. Palestinian society is stunted, its promise and talent thrown away by terrorist psychopaths. Each people owes it to themselves to come to peace and coexistence, as that is the best way for each to disempower the predators who feed on their own, who exploit their publics for private gains.

Israel has allowed the settler movement to grow unchecked into a threat to the integrity of the state. They have dragged down with them the credibility and independence of the police, the military, and the Knesset. It is once again time that Israelis listened to the advice of the national security establishment, recognized the internal danger for what it is, and drove it from governmental power. The next election cannot come soon enough.

[sixpossumsinatrenchcoat]

Genocide in Palestine: It’s Really Not Complicated

An accessible primer designed to sway the “both sides are wrong” people in your life

(context: i put this together for my own parents, but decided to share it in case it could help anyone else. i think a lot of us feel like we're just shouting into an echo chamber & only being heard by people who already agree.... so this was my attempt at making something that could help carry the truth outside of our activist bubble! feel free to copy/paste whatever, tweak the language so it's in ur own words, etc.)

The context:

A brief history of Israeli occupation

A long track record of peaceful protest (all met with slaughter)

An exemplary essay on the Palestinian experience of the global climate around occupied Palestine

The situation in Palestine today:

Is this genocide?

Indisputably, yes.

But if you can’t take my word for it, listen to the experts:

Holocaust survivors protesting for a free Palestine

The resignation letter from the Director of New York Office of the UN High Commissioner of Human Rights (I strongly recommend reading at least the first page) (full letter here)

More from the former UN Director

Every single country in the UN voting yes on a ceasefire & then being blocked by the US and a handful of our military allies

Explicit genocidal intent from Israel's Public Diplomacy Minister

Explicit genocidal intent (en masse) in the Zionist movement

Another Auschwitz survivor speaking out (this man is now dead, this video is >13 yrs old) (these atrocities have gone unpunished for decades)

Why anti-Zionism is NOT anti-Semitism: 

A brief background on Zionism

The IDF employs the same violence against Jewish Israeli citizens who don’t support the genocide:

Zionist forces brutally assault Orthodox Jews in the streets of Jerusalem for opposing genocide in Gaza

Holocaust survivors protesting for a free Palestine

More support for anti-Zionism from a Jewish woman raised by a Zionist family

Israeli citizens speaking out against the IDF:

Israeli teens serving jail time for refusing to serve in the IDF

Another Jewish Israeli speaking out against Palestinian occupation

Evidence that the IDF is fabricating claims to rationalize further violence (and is actively responsible for much of the actual damage): 

“Baby teeth from infants burned alive” debunked by experts, (addtl dentists weighing in)

Accusing Hamas of war crimes committed by the IDF

Scenes from Israel & Palestine before Gaza’s power grid got cut

Recent atrocities: a not-remotely-comprehensive list

Thousands of children dead. Not claimed to be dead without any evidence—actual children with names and verifiable identities, crushed and burned alive. 

The 2023/2024 school year in Gaza has been formally canceled because every single student is dead.

IDF targeting designated “safe” evacuation routes:

https://www.wionews.com/world/israeli-strikes-kill-gaza-civilians-including-children-on-safe-routes-reports-646972 (Sidebar: can we talk about the use of quotation marks around “kill” here? ‘Oops, my hand slipped onto the trigger of a gun and then someone got “ouch-ed” by a “bullet!” Clumsy me!’) 

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/oct/14/gaza-civilians-afraid-to-leave-home-after-bombing-of-safe-routes 

IDF targeting hospitals:

Al Quds Hospital

Turkish-Palestinian Friendship Hospital

Cutting Gaza’s power grid

The indiscriminate use of weapons banned by the Geneva Convention. White phosphorus does not stop burning till it reaches bone. They are crop dusting refugee camps and schools with this. This is not just hearsay, this has been eyewitness-confirmed by international journalists & Amnesty International. 

They dropped it on a fucking school. Full of children. Burned alive from the inside out. There are literally no words.

More evidence

As of 11/2, lsrael has dropped 25,000 tons of explosives on Gaza Strip, which is equivalent to the explosive force of two nuclear bombs.

IDF targeting refugee camps:

Jabalia refugee camp:

More on Jabalia

A second blast on Jabalia in 2 days (there’s since been a third)

Israeli soldiers starting a “kidnapping challenge” in which Palestinians in the West Bank are kidnapped and blindfolded. TikTok is filled with videos of Israeli soldiers and civilians participating.

Pogroms & forced displacement in the West Bank

Targeting journalists & silencing dissenters

Cholera outbreaks from contaminated water & infant death from dehydration due to Gaza being (deliberately) cut off from clean water

Hundreds of Palestinian workers abducted & tortured without ever learning the charges

The Bottom Line: the IDF claims to be targeting Hamas, but they’ve razed entire cities to the ground. They target churches, mosques, & synagogues alike. They target refugee camps and schoolyards and bucolic farmland. This is not about tracking down a few terrorists, this is about wiping out an ethnic group in order to occupy their homeland. 

The human side: individual voices & experiences

A message from a doctor in Gaza

A young video blogger reporting from Gaza 

Palestinian children speaking out

The faces of the people we’re targeting. 

(There’s obviously a tremendous amount of this, most of which is much much harder to watch. But I am emotionally exhausted so for now I’ll just leave it at that.)

Does this mean you condone Hamas?

No. Do you condone decades of ethnic cleansing and forced displacement? 

Or, put differently: Palestine has been under violent imperialist rule for years, with similar atrocities / acts of violence / systematic displacement taking place for literal decades. As I keep hearing from better-informed activists than myself, this did not start on October 7th. (Exhibit A, Exhibit B, I could go on but you get the idea). And after decades of peaceful protest and pleas to be seen, the first time that Palestine has ever received this much media attention was after the violence on 10/7. Do I think it’s good to harm civilians? No. Obviously not. But I think it’s worse to bomb thousands of civilian buildings for decades on end without any oversight, accountability or consequence. 

Unfortunately, no dominant system of power has ever been dismantled without bloodshed. Targeting civilians is atrocious, but that’s what Israel has been doing for decades, and no one batted an eye until Palestine struck back. 

If this is true, why is this my first time hearing about it?

Let’s talk about:

The Propaganda Machine!

A silly & unexpectedly informative overview of the propaganda machine… ~in song~

One very small example

Reuters provides a good example of how journalists rely on readers’ short attention span to paint Palestinians as monsters:

Let’s start with the headline: [Freed Israeli hostage says 'I've been through hell']

Yikes! Yeah! Makes sense! Being kidnapped is really scary! The front half of the article describes the pain and terror of that kidnapping in detail. But if you scroll down to the bottom, you get to read her account on her time as a hostage: 

"When we got there, first of all they told us that they believed in the Koran and that they would not harm us," she recounted. A group of five people from her kibbutz were held together, each with an individual guard who stayed with them 24 hours a day. Lifshitz said a doctor visited them every other day and brought them the medicines they needed. "They took good care of the wounded," Lifshitz said. Video of her release on Monday showed her turning around to shake the hand of a masked captor. Asked why she had done that, she replied: "They treated us gently and met all our needs."

Sidebar: did you know that Hamas was willing to free all hostages in exchange for the release of the countless Palestinians imprisoned by the IDF on no charges whatsoever? I sure didn’t! Because U.S. media doesn’t cover those stories. Because the corporations funding these atrocities have financial interest in maintaining Israel’s status as innocent victims, and the entire civilian population of Palestine as a living smokescreen for Hamas. 

Examples of the U.S. trying to maintain its facade as “the good guy” — The U.S. takes credit for restoring power to Gaza when in fact it was Palestineans on the ground who restored their own power

Thanks to pressure from a massive groundswell of grassroots support, the media climate has changed in the past week alone, but I swear to god that one week ago (10/26), I googled “attacks on Palestine” / “bombings in Gaza” and Google EXCLUSIVELY provided results on the Oct 7 attack on Israel.

The US govt attempting to run further arms deals in secret with zero oversight, inured from all checks & balances, in order to hide our involvement in these atrocities

I have yet to see a single one of these massive protests in the news

But if this is really genocide, why is the US still siding with Israel? 

A very thorough explanation from a former Stanford professor.

(The short version: Israel has long been America's attack dog in the Middle East, and allows us unparalleled access to the resources that we want to take advantage of. It's the military-industrial complex at its most insidious. If you can’t accept that answer, please just listen to the podcast.)

Misc. addtl resources: 

A helpful thread addressing common pro-Israel arguments

An excellent reading list compiled by people much smarter than me

Okay, so we’re funding a genocide. What can I do?

Buy e-sims to get Gaza back online

Contact your local legislators. This google doc makes it insanely easy to send an auto-email in protest to every single bill funding the genocide. It’ll help if you change the language a tiny bit to keep it from getting flagged as spam, but whatever you’ll actually do is better than nothing. Mobile version here.

Boycott the companies most actively lobbying for further violence

TALK ABOUT IT. EVEN WHEN IT IS UNCOMFORTABLE. Especially when it’s uncomfortable. The government is depending on our exhaustion, our desensitization, our silence & our compliance. Do Not Let Them Get Away With It. If nothing else, your support helps suffering people to feel a tiny bit more seen. That should be reason enough.

Who are you (and what’s your agenda)?

Nobody, really. Just some privileged American who’s been watching our president stand around spouting bullshit about how, “oh, well, there’s no way to know…” while my twitter feed overflows with on-the-ground footage of the worst shit I have ever seen. I’m sharing this anonymously because I have a hard time feeling visible on the internet (I don’t have any social media accounts under my real name, just goofy fandom aliases to post about my dumb hyperfixations). But it’s also because it doesn’t really matter who I am. I’m not half as educated as any of the folks linked above, so the most I can do is compress & compile the resources that a lot of folks—namely, those who get their news from mainstream media—don’t get to see. 

If you’re so unqualified, why are you making this? What’s your game here 🤨🤨🤨

It’s pretty fuckin selfish, but I guess my immediate agenda is to be able to talk to my parents again? To have a real conversation without the constant fear that someone’s about to say something that’ll make me totally shut down, just because they get their info from the news. If it can do that much, I’ll be… still drenched in despair, I guess, but maybe 1% less anxious? 

Beyond that, I feel like a lot of us feel like we’re shouting into an echo chamber. Like, all of this info is out there, but it only forms a larger picture if you’re already, constantly plugged in. I think that in a lot of cases, our (very justified) anger winds up alienating folks whose main flaw is just… trusting the resources that they’ve been taught to trust. So I liked the idea of making something that would feel accessible to folks who sit outside of our bubble—something that could be informative without coming off as shout-y or judgmental. Hopefully I came close? 

…End of day, I guess it feels better than doing nothing.

[jyndor]

Hi, Ukrainian anon here again.

I totally respect your points, and as someone who realises that we Ukrainians ought to be some of the most understanding of Palestinians considering what Russia has put us through, it’s very frustrating that mostly older people seem to be unable to see the hypocrisy in supporting Israel.

As you can imagine, it’s younger people like myself who are more sympathetic to the Palestinians than the Israelis.

I truly don’t mean this to sound as though I’m justifying them, or Zelensky, but as you said with geopolitics, we’re heavily dependent on our fight for freedom on the goodwill of the US and the current administration, and we don’t want to give them a reason to publicly disavow the fight.

Iran is also a big factor. The Iranian government is aiding Russia by sending them drones to use on our cities, killing hundreds of people, and Iran also supports Hamas. So for most people who are very narrowly focused on fighting against Russia, the simplicity is Iran supports our enemy, so anything they support we must oppose.

I believe slowly but surely people are coming to see the truth of the occupation of Palestine. Even more as a large number of our people live and see what oppression by a foreign power is really like. 300 of our artists, academics, labor activists and journalists signed a letter in support of Palestine.

And on some level, I can see why in the global south, it’s hard to take the word of a US ally that’s reliant on their aid, against Russia, which has historically supported liberation movements. Although I do hope they see the truth eventually.

https://www.aljazeera.com/amp/opinions/2023/11/8/ukrainian-letter-of-solidarity-with-the-palestinian

https://internationalviewpoint.org/spip.php?article8300

Thanks again, and all the best to you!

Hi Ukrainian anon, hope you are as okay as possible and sending my love.

Geopolitics is messy - I think that's the point, right? It's so important that we all stand for each other regardless because it's the right thing to do.

I've actually talked a bit about the history of solidarity between Ukrainians and Palestinians before, including with that letter that you mentioned. It's complicated right now but like you said, things may be changing.

I'm all for hating on governments, especially ones like Iran's (which ofc only exists because the US wouldn't stop meddling smdh) and Russia's and so many others. Especially mine. I can also recognize when they stumble into doing good (like supporting Ukraine, even if it's barely enough and way later than it should have been). Geopolitics is messy, and my point really was that I am never gonna be mad at a less powerful country aligning with a global power because that power is aiding them. I wish it wasn't like that but lol I mean I wish a lot of things. I wish for an end to occupations and wars.

I'd love to hear from you about what you're going through, but only if you have the desire or energy to share. I really appreciate you reaching out, and if you ever need someone to listen privately lmk. I'm a wax specialist by trade so I am very good at respecting people's privacy.

I'm thinking of you and yours.

[thottacelli]

Idk about this, I don't think we should be so passive about the limitations the powers that be are putting us under, nor what the effects of obeying those limitations will be.

Regardless of what Oliver actually believes, saying Hamas is bad hurts Palestinians and their fight for freedom. Hamas (and other liberation groups but I'm focusing on Hamas cuz they are currently the most visible and talked about) will be what frees Palestine from occupation. They are also the elected gov of Gaza and will be what takes over administration of the area once israel stops attacking. What is the point of calling for a ceasefire if you also demonize the people who will be running the area after you get that ceasefire?

To me, all that this is going to do is manufacture consent for another attack on Gaza. Right now Gazans are bearly seen as innocent civilians. But if we spend this entire war telling the world that Palestinians are innocent but Hamas is definitely bad, how are people going to feel about Gaza when they hear that Hamas took control after the ceasefire? It's going to make people more ok with an attack on Gaza cuz it's officially ran by terrorists.

I don't think Oliver's intentions or potential gag orders really matter here, what matters is the lasting freedom of Palestine. If what he is doing and saying goes against what Palestinians want and will ultimately hurt them, then it's not good and he should be criticized for it.

John Oliver has enough money and visibility that he could get fired from HBO for disobeying a gag order and start a YouTube channel called "another night with John Oliver" or something and still have an extremely successful career. So while he may have been put under one, he really didn't HAVE to listen to a gag order, and we shouldn't be making excuses for him.

Oliver can do and say whatever he wants on his show, but we should not baby him just cuz he isn't a raging facist. He has trust and he has influence, he could have used that trust to change people's minds about Hamas but he didn't. He can and should be judged for that.

It's not that I don't understand that you can't go far left on television, I simply do not accept that I have to live by what makes a CEO comfortable. If we continue to be ok with crumbs of freedom and justify why we can't have anything better, then there is no way things will get better than this. They are not going to give us permission to say bad things about them, so we must decide to do it anyway. And people like Oliver are the very few of us that can blatantly go against them and come out the other end still intact. He does not have to stick his neck out, but he should not be exempt from criticism for his choice not to do so.

Also, any bridge that doesn't lead to liberation for colonized people is just a distraction and shouldn't exist anyway. We should not encourage people to come to easy conclusions and solutions just because they are slightly progressive. Solutions like these are not going to change enough to actually benefit the most exploited of us. Simply pushing people left is not good enough, being a general leftist is not good enough, we must have people educated on anti-imperialism and what actually needs to be done to liberate colonized people.

Or you end up with a bunch of people saying we need a ceasefire while vehemently insisting the people who will be picking up the pieces afterwards are violent terrorists.

People get so weird about John Oliver. They're so unwilling to accept that yes, this is the furthest left you're allowed to be on a talk show on a corporate network. They're currently mad he did a segment calling for a ceasefire in Gaza, something very few media people have done, something many outlets have discouraged, bc he...also said Hamas is bad, and he titled the segment "Israel-Hamas War". Like Jesus Christ, yes, a lot of what John Oliver says is radical by the standards of corporate media, and I don't know, maybe it's important to have that voice in that widely-accessible space and not hold him up as a failure bc he doesn't provide solutions for everything and isn't perfect.

"All he does is say the problem is capitalism, but doesn't suggest what to do" You realize HBO's other political talk show is hosted by a guy who spends each week raving about how woke college students and pronouns are oppressing him, right? The bar for John Oliver is not set where it is for a dirtbag leftist podcast; that's the bar. Why does he have to outline the revolution

[garudabluffs]

Gaza will be 'one big displacement camp' for the foreseeable future, journalist says

MAY 15, 2024

A.G. : "President Biden's national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, criticized the Netanyahu government this week for not having a political plan for the future of Gaza. Israel wants to wipe out Hamas. Hamas wants to wipe out Israel. So what might a political plan for the future of Gaza look like? President Biden says he'd like to see a two-state solution. A lot of people in the Middle East - a lot of leaders in the Middle East think, too late for that. That's dead. So do you think a two-state solution is still at all feasible? And if not, what are some of the alternatives that have been proposed?"

CARLSTROM: "I think you have two questions. You have the short-term question of who's going to run Gaza now and immediately after the war? And then you have the longer-term question of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, not just Gaza, but the occupation - the Israel occupation writ large. On the more immediate question, I think Jake Sullivan is right that the Israelis don't have a plan for postwar Gaza. I'm not sure the Americans have a viable plan either. I'm not sure anyone does, to be honest."

"No one has a good plan for what to do in the short term. And the longer this war goes on and the more this power vacuum becomes entrenched, I think the harder it's going to be to imagine any kind of political alternative there."

+"

CARLSTROM: So there's a technical definition of famine - right? - which has three parts. It has to do with a certain number of people being malnourished and a certain number of children are wasting and a certain number of people are dying, and you have to meet these three criteria for the U.N. body that oversees these things to formally declare a famine. And when I've spoken to U.N. officials over the past few months, they've said, honestly, we're not sure we'll ever be at that point where we can make that official declaration, because there is just not enough data in some parts of Gaza. The medical infrastructure has collapsed so badly that it may not be possible to assess all three of those points.

But then there's a sort of real-world understanding of famine, and I think Gaza - northern Gaza - is absolutely and has absolutely been for weeks, if not months now, in a state of famine. I mean, that's the assessment we've heard from Cindy McCain, the head of the World Food Programme, that's the assessment we've heard from other U.N. officials, and that tracks with, you know, my own conversations that I've had with people about how little food is available, how people are routinely going 24 hours without a meal, or foraging for weeds and leaves and other wild plants to try and get something to eat. I mean, that has been the case in northern Gaza in particular for months now, and so I think it's absolutely correct to say that parts of Gaza have entered a famine."

44-Minute Listen

GROSS: Gregg Carlstrom is a Middle East correspondent for The Economist. He spoke to us from Dubai. After we recorded our interview yesterday, The Wall Street Journal reported that President Biden has indicated to Congress that he plans to call for a billion dollars of future arms shipments to Israel, but critics say that planning on future arms sales to Israel undercuts the current message the White House has been sending to the Netanyahu government not to launch an assault on Rafah.

[selfdesructs]

I think it is a deliberate, not balanced, mischaracterisation that Israel is somehow a democracy and that its aims are to free Palestine from Hamas to then facilitate peace. It is an intentional mischaracterisation to state Palestinians are suffering because of Hamas, not Israel. Palestinians suffer because they live under settler colonialism, and they live under these conditions because the hope is they will just leave as refugees, or to push them to violent resistance so there is a justification for forcibly removing them. This is stated by the founder of Zionism, Israel’s first PM, and all through Israeli history and academia, linked below.

Before Hamas existed (such as when Fatah was in power, a group that abandoned the armed struggle and sought diplomacy), we saw these disproportionate responses; the same narrative time and time again; Palestinians retaliate - sometimes peacefully, in the form of civil disobedience, sometimes violently, in the forms of throwing stones and Molotov cocktails, to protest the conditions they are living in. The Israeli response, marketed as to “defend itself,” is usually mass killings of civilians, keeping the population in line, to remind us that no one is listening, your resistance futile. No one seems to be asking the question of what Palestinians should be doing, other than dying quietly. No one seems to be asking what Israel has actually offered in terms of peace - it certainly isn’t returning occupied land

The best way to eradicate Hamas, and the threat to Israelis and “everyone,” is to get rid of the conditions that enable people to become radicalised (poverty, discrimination, lack of human rights) which would mean, the state in the position of power to make that change - i.e. the trillion dollar military superpower backed by the USA, Europe and Australia - ends it occupation and apartheid. Calling on the people within the cage (Palestinians) to stop acting violently only makes sense if their non-violent actions (and the history of Palestinian non-violent resistance is far richer and longer, but never covered) are listened to.

[nogunsjustrosess]

Israel 'defending itself' is a laughable phrase when they have all the military power and technology and respond to whatever attacks Palestinians initiate with homemade rockets and rocks tenfold with more civilian deaths. they wouldn't have to defend themselves if they weren't occupying palestinian land and brutally suppressing its people. the fixation on Hamas which was created YEARS into the conflict, long after Israel had already been perpetrating war crimes, is just a way to deflect from the reality that Israel is a colonial project that is killing Palestinian babies in the name of self defense. consider why you want to justify IDF soldiers shooting at people who are running away from them, surrendering. these people live in a prison. they have no clean air or water. Israel controls everything - their electricity, their sewage systems, controls where they come and go. they have no freedoms. it is not even a remotely comparable situation. Israel has ALL the power, Palestine has NONE.

I will answer you thoroughly because I want you to take the time and read this response, there are MANY incorrections and misconceptions here that I hope are the results of being simply misinformed and not something way worse.

not gonna flood your feed so I’m putting everything under the tag. 

“Israel 'defending itself' is a laughable phrase when they have all the military power and technology and respond to whatever attacks Palestinians initiate with homemade rockets and rocks tenfold with more civilian deaths.”

 The asymmetry you’re talking about - tech and military wise - being your justification as to why Israel just has to endure ‘homemade rockets and rocks’  is fucked up. First of all, these are NOT just homemade rockets. 

Hamas has multiple types of rockets - and let me tell you - they are NOT homemade. Hamas is the third wealthiest terror organisation according to forbes. They receive money from Qatar and Jordan, as well as many other countries that think they fund help for the Palestinian. They don’t, Hamas uses all that money to launch thousands of top notch rockets and missiles to Israel, instead of helping the people of Gaza. Do you think homemade rockets look like this? do you think they can do this? maybe this? 

this?

or that? 

I wrote about the rocks Palestinians throw at soldiers and civilians here,  last week, an Israeli Jewish man was beaten to death and murdered by rocks in Lod by radical Israeli Arabs who identify as Palestinians. This is only the most recent occurrence - but it happens all the time and poses a serious life threat since the rocks thrown aren’t cute little beach stone, they’re big chunks of rock meant to kill, and using them as weapons is illegal in multiple countries around the world because of how dangerous it is. 

Gaza has more civilian deaths, that’s for sure. Again asymmetry that raises the brutal question - why there aren’t more Israeli people dying? Now, Israel does have a better system and way better protective measures against missiles and rockets. Do you want to know why? Israel invests millions in shelters, protective spaces and most of all - the Iron Dome. Hamas invests the same amounts of money in arming itself with missiles they launch at Israeli civilians (Jewish, Arab and Christians). Also, Hamas launches missiles and rockets from civilian areas so when they malfunction they also blow up around the same areas. 

“they wouldn't have to defend themselves if they weren't occupying palestinian land and brutally suppressing its people.”

Do you realize that they wouldn’t have to ‘defend themselves’ if they weren’t shooting at Israel in the first place? They are NOT defending themselves, Hamas has been continually sending missiles to Israel with no regard to human lives - not Israel’s nor theirs. Also, Israel has withdrawn all its settlements in 2005 with the exception of some parts in the Gaza strip, so not so much for your occupation, unless you believe the entire land of Israel is an occupation, and in that case - you’re historically incorrect. 

“the fixation on Hamas which was created YEARS into the conflict, long after Israel had already been perpetrating war crimes”

The ‘fixation’ on Hamas is the direct result of the pure fact they are actively trying to MURDER Israeli civilians every single day. You are correct by saying the conflict is way older than Hamas and way more complicated than them (you see, that’s why you DON’T get your info from infographics folks) but before Hamas there was the terror organisation Hezbollah from Lebanon (that very recently decided to join the party and fire missiles from the northern border to Israel as well), the Muslim Brotherhood and of course, ISIS. They are the terror organisations that continuously try to wipe Israel and everybody in it for good, committing endless war crimes. You all shout war crimes when Israel is the only country trying to minimise and prevent the harm done to Palestinians, often on its own expanse - like here, yesterday Israel tried to ship some resources to Gaza but the shipments were attacked by Palestinians. 

“a way to deflect from the reality that Israel is a colonial project that is killing Palestinian babies in the name of self defense.”

You guys love that argument - Israel killing Palestinian babies. Well here and here you can see well planned attacks on Hamas HQ and offices that were called off last minute because it was revealed civilians and children were present. This is something the army tries to avoid at all cost, even if it means losing millions, as well as months and sometimes years of intelligence gathering. That’s because Israel values human lives more than anything! Every possible effort to eliminate the threat to innocent lives WILL be made on the expense of anything. Except, Hamas doesn’t play by those rules, they have been known to deliberately hide Intelligence HQ, offices, and even high level terrorist amongst civilians, as well as schools, hospitals - and our newest example - news buildings. Putting human lives in danger because they use Israel’s refusal to kill civilians as an advantage. Unfortunately, that also means many time Israel doesn’t know about the presence of civilians there and horrible deaths happen. That’s very much on Hamas. 

“is just consider why you want to justify IDF soldiers shooting at people who are running away from them, surrendering. these people live in a prison.”

Listen, IDF soldiers are rarely allowed to shoot anyone - most of them don’t even carry any weapons but pepper spray. But the ones who do suffer very severe consequences if they misuse their weapons and they need to justify themselves in a court marshall . For example a couple of years ago a 19 years old soldier shot a terrorist that tried to stab his friend, he went through multiple court marshalls and even a civil trial, as well as months in prison. Believe me, this is not something any soldier would want to go trough unless their life was in grave danger and they had to shoot. (maybe America could learn a thing or too).

“they have no clean air or water. Israel controls everything - their electricity, their sewage systems, controls where they come and go. they have no freedoms. it is not even a remotely comparable situation. Israel has ALL the power, Palestine has NONE.”

Lastly, please do your research. First of all, Gaza is currently controlled by Hamas. And has been since its election almost 15 years ago. They control the resources Palestinians get or don’t get, and again - they choose to spend the billions they get in funds by buying missiles and weapons. The only thing Israel truly controls is the border with Israel, and like any other border it’s monitored and controlled, especially since it’s a favoured place for terrorist to execute attacks. Don’t forget there’s a border with Egypt as well. 

We’re not talking about Israel vs Palestinians. We’re talking about Israel vs Hamas - a blood thirsty, antisemitic terror organisation that has no value for human lives whatsoever. And still, Israel is the one who gets blamed and condemned.  

(and i have to thank @mysteryspotillusions because she did such a great job and I link to her posts several times!) 

[carnistcervine]

Water-Fire Reversal AU

...But then, everything changed when the Water Tribes attacked.

Here's the proper headcanons/outline/AU thing for my own interpretation of Water-Fire reversal AU.

Based on my post here.

-The Water Tribes becomes the perpetrators of the 100 years war, and the Fire Nation becomes the one stripped away and decimated.

-God forgot to nerf the Southern Water Tribe and they joined forces with the North during Kyoshi's time.

-Kyoshi is too busy chillin on her island to bother with them, so they become dangerously powerful by the time Roku rolls around.

-The Fire Nation still goes through with it's industrialization, because, come on it's a volcanic island chain. There's lots and lots of heat, and fossil fuels, and metal ore. They wouldn't not have an industrial revolution.

-The only difference here is that Sozin actually heeds Roku's advice and decides to listen to the Avatar. He accepts that the world needs to remain four nations, and decides to help him uphold the balance.

-Their friendship grows strong once again.

-So when colonies appear in the Earth Kingdom, it's the South colonizing Kyoshi island.

-Roku is like, OH HELL NO- D:<

-He goes to confront the Southern Chief, and she's all, bitch I do what I want.

-But Roku has had time to calm his tits on the ride over so, he tries to be rational and restrained about it.

-So he be like, "Leave Kyoshi alone, or I will string you up by your nipples"(or something like that. :'D)

-Also, uh, Kyoshi may or may not be part of why Roku is so mad. I mean he is her direct successor.

-The uh, the Water Tribes didn't like that.

-At all, lmao.

-They get into a fight, he kills the chief, which only further serves to turn the Water Tribes against him. And makes their chief a martyr. Strengthening her cause.

-However, at the time they see Roku as acting as Avatar, so they leave the Fire Nation be. Their beef is with him.

-The Avatar is at war with the Water Tribes for several years, resulting is heavy destruction for both tribes, and leaving Roku exhausted.

-Rather than see their Tribes destroyed, they decide to temporarily back off, lick their wounds, recuperate, and make a plan to strike back against Roku.

-Tired, Roku retires to his volcano home and settles down with his family.

-Now, volcanoes do not erupt with no warning whatsoever. Roku and the inhabitants of his island simply misjudged when it would blow it's top.

-However, it did not escape the Water Tribe's notice that the volcano was growing increasingly unstable.

-They primed themselves to strike as it grew increasingly violent.

-When the volcano blew it's top Roku was dealing with both an angry volcano, and angry waterbenders using their combined power to summon tsunamis.

-Roku had to stop the volcano and protect the people trying to flee at the same time.

-He put more into protecting the people, as they had nothing to do with it and didn't deserve to be dragged into his conflict.

-Sozin, seeing Roku's island blowing it's top, came in on his dragon and offered his help.

-Sozin works to get the people to safety while Roku battles the volcano and waterbenders.

-Roku is overwhelmed and both he and his dragon are slain in battle.

-Sozin sees the attack as a declaration of War.

-The Air Nomads are not wiped out.

-Not because the Water Tribes are nice or anything. No, in this AU, they are just as bad as canon Fire Nation.

-The Air Nomads are still around because there is no water equivalent to Sozin's comet. And where the Air Nomads live, ridiculously high above sea-level, protects them from the Water Tribes.

-Sozin begs the Air Nomads for help, but they refuse to partake in the war. Even to the point of hiding Aang from the world.

-In this AU, the Air Nomads serve a role similar to the canon North and Ba Sing Se. Where they put up their defenses and sit idly by as the rest of the world drowns.

-The Water Tribes decimate and wash away many coastal communities, only sparing the ones that bow down to them and allow themselves to be colonized.

-Ba Sing Se and Omashu are safe, because they are far away from major sources of water. Ba Sing Se is mostly surrounded by desert and the only water way is protected by sea serpents(plural).

-And also that goddamn wall.

-Kyoshi Island had the Unagi, but... it was killed. :'D

-The South had a feast that night. lmao

-Sozin plans on putting an end to the war using Sozin's Comet(called Agni's Comet or the Great Comet).

-But uh, there's an eclipse.

-It becomes known as the Darkest Day in Fire Nation history.

-The Fire Nation royal family make it out okay, but to say the country as a whole was decimated is an understatement.

-This becomes the catalyst to the war, with the Earth Kingdom being moved to join forces with the Fire Nation to fight back against the Water Tribes.

-The Earth Kingdoms and Fire Nation have some leverage with their metal ships, but the Water Tribes have the advantage of literally being able to use the battle field as a weapon.

-Learning from the Darkest Day, the Fire Nation(with the help of the Earth Kingdom) builds a wall around it's inner cities.

-They make a recovery, but the outermost communities(ie. the fishing villages) are pillaged and ravaged constantly by the Water Tribes.

-Of course, there was a short occupation of the Fire Nation by the Water Tribes as a result of the Darkest Day, but well, let's just say Agni's Comet fixed that. :^D

-As for Aang, he still goes out and explores the world, but only under the strict guidance of the other monks.

-They are careful to hide the war from him, and him from the war.

-However they cannot hide him from his destiny forever, and as the monks grow increasingly worried over the world's state of affairs, they decide to hide him away completely.

-Very, intimately aware of the fact that Water is next in the cycle, and they likely won't hesitate to kill the poor child to get their own Avatar to corrupt to their terrible ways.

-Aang doesn't take very well to be smothered and runs away.

-Unfortunately he ends up in the middle of a battlefield with fireballs, waves and ice going every which way.

-The stress of nearly being killed triggers the Avatar state and he freezes the battle with himself in stasis in the center.

-The other soldiers either escape or die in the icy tomb. :)

-Without Sozin and Azulon perpetuating a cycle of abuse, Ozai, Zuko, and Azula all turn out as much better people.

-On the other side, the familial bonds of the water tribe take a much darker tone. Anyone not within the tribe/the family doesn't matter. The Tribe is all that matters, all others are the enemy. They become colder, much more insular. While they care for one another, they become rigid as ice, family and tradition being valued above all else.

-Also, waterbending lost touch with it's roots, becoming dark and perverted. A way to sway others to your own way, rather than flowing with the natural push and pull of the world, it became the water tribe pushing against all and pulling in what they please.

-This is borrowing from another AU of mine(*eyebrow dance*), healing is perverted into a technique that brainwashes people. Think of Katara healing Jet's mind from the brainwashing, but in reverse. :^)

-Kanna and Pakku are betrothed, while Pakku is willing to let things like only teaching women to heal, and arranged marriages slide, finds actual, genuine brainwashing to be genuinely disturbing. But tries his best to ignore it. It's just how things are, he tells himself.

-When Hama developed her bloodbending technique and shows it off to the North.

-She proposes it as a way to get the filthy ashmakers and dirtstompers to submit to the mind melting.

-When they try to get Pakku to learn/teach his students bloodbending, he breaks. He can't take it anymore and deserts.

-He becomes the first to desert the Water Tribe navy.

-Kanna feeling the bite of shame, agrees to marry someone from the South instead.

-But also, daytime bloodbender Yue.

-When Katara turns fourteen, she is deemed a master waterbender and given the rights to begin higher level training and learn the secrets of the Water Tribes.

-She learns of bloodbending, and mind manipulation.

-Having fully bought into Water Tribe propaganda her whole life, she cannot believe this. Horrified, she speaks out directly calling Hama disgusting and wicked for inventing such a technique.

-She rightfully calls out her tribes elders for using these techniques on innocent people.

-Oh, boi, but calling out the elders amounts to treason.

-Because she called out her elders, she had dishonored her ancestors and as such had to best Hama in one-on-one combat to avoid being exiled.

-And uhhh, she lost her fuckin eye instead.

-Disillusioned from loosing his father to the war, Sokka joins Katara in her exile.

-Seeing as Kya is the chief of the South, she gives an in for Katara to return back to the tribe's good graces. A way to prove herself. She must find the Avatar and bring him to the Water Tribes.

-Sokka having grown disillusioned, sees it as a way for him and his sister to finally get away from the darkness infesting their home.

-They spend two years at sea looking for the legendary Avatar who vanished for 100 years.

-Also Katara wears an eyepatch and 100% looks like a motherfucking pirate.

-And Zuko, sixteen year old, grumpy but well meaning and kind-hearted Zuko, fears deeply for his people.

-Unfortunately, he feels like his nation isn't doing nearly enough to protect the people living outside the walls.

-Ozai warns young Zuko multiple times that his is not permitted outside the walls. "That place is no place for royalty." He would say.

-"Come back to your gilded cage" He would mean.

-It's only inevitable that Zuko sneaks out and invents the person of the Blue Spirit to help the poor folk living outside the walls.

-His uncle catches him, but doesn't tell. Instead he watches over him, he knows that he can't stop Zuko from trying to save his own people.

-Unfortunately things go tits up when there is an attack in the middle of Zuko helping the people.

-Zuko is captured, and taken away, but Iroh manages to sneak on as well.

-Together they escape, but by that point that are far, far away from the Fire Nation.

-While slowly rowing their little dingy back, they come across a certain frozen battlefield sitting in the middle of the ocean...

-And as fate would have it, a certain, hot-headed, one-eyed waterbender and her "slacker" brother happen to be sailing nearby when Aang is freed.

-Aang has no idea that he's the Avatar, but he also doesn't feel like going back home. He wants to know why the people are fighting.

-He wants to understand why they hate each other so much. :(

-Iroh picks up that Aang is the Avatar right away though.

-He subtly tries to pry Aang about how much he knows of this or his destiny.

-And Aang knows nothing, the monks never got the chance to tell him because he ran away.

-Iroh thinks of a way to gently break the news to Aang, and tactfully handle his need to be trained so he can put an end to this war once and for all.

-Hopefully before Agni's Comet, because Iroh knows that even though his brother isn't a wicked man, he will do what is necessary to put an end to this.

-You see, the Fire Nation has begun to withdraw, it's mostly biding it's time for the Comet's return so that they can put an end to this struggle once and for all.

-Ozai doesn't want to destroy the Water Tribes, but watching his father drown, his nephew slaughtered, and his own brother crippled and forced into retirement has brought him to some very dark conclusions.

-Iroh advocates strongly against using the comet for war, but Ozai has made it clear if the war does not end before the comet appears... He will do what he deems to be necessary.

-That being said, finding out that his son and brother had been taken by the Water Tribes throws him into a rage.

-And yeah, loosing Lu Ten and Azulon, broke Iroh. Along with being physically injured himself. So he gave up the throne to Ozai, feeling that there was nothing he could do for his country.

-With the Avatar, now found, Iroh decides to indulge his nephew's desire to travel and help in the war effort.

-Because, well, Iroh is terrified that Ozai will use Aang to take down the Water Tribe violently.

-An unfortunate consequence of this is that for a while, Ozai thinks that Zuko and Iroh are dead!

-And Ozai is the opposite of able to cope with this. lmao

-I haven't decided when Aang should realize that he's the Avatar, but it's def gonna be due to him loosing control and lashing out in the avatar state.

-Iroh ends up being the one to calm Aang down when he goes Avatar-Rage-Mode.

-Because Iroh is big soft man, and basically Aang and Zuko's dad.

-It's too soft to for me to resist okay?? :D

-I'm also not entirely sure when to place this on the timeline, but I am highly considering having Ozai find out that Zuko and Iroh are alive at the end of Book 1, so that it can mirror canon a bit. Because as soon as he finds out they're alive he sends his stronk ass, prodigy daughter Azula to go fetch the two and bring them back home safely.

-But also go get the Avatar, so he can be properly trained in firebending.

-Yes, Azula is good in this fic. But she's still not nice. She's very pragmatic and stoic. She does genuinely care about her brother and Uncle, but she considers the safety of the world and the Fire Nation to be more important than their feelings.

-She's cold and detached, but would do anything to protect the Fire Nation, her family or help the world as a whole.

-Azula is also occasionally playful, teasing Zuko and calling him Zuzu or dum-dum.

-Once she's pulled into the story, she kinda serves as a rival to Zuko. Constantly trying to drag the Gaang home to the Fire Nation, so the Avatar can be taught by proper instructors.

-And Ozai is not a bad dude, but he's STRESSED. And seen some very unfortunate things. Let's just say, the war is not putting him a great headspace.

-Like he isn't abusive like Canon!Ozai, but his desperation to save his country and put an end to the war is driving him to do some questionable things. Like considering using Agni's Comet.

-The people of the Foggy Swamp are still good and left in tune with the true nature of water. So when time comes around to Katara to have her heel-face turn, ya already know who she gon go to.

-Also, they sups spiritual, so yeh.

-I am also considering having the Foggy Swamp be the final point of Katara's redemption arc, like her final realization of what he destiny really entails and what she must do.

-But I do want the first step to be Sokka getting injured while protecting her.

-Like she can't believe this, she's about to loose the last piece of her family, and in a desperate move, she rediscovers the lost art of true healing. Saving Sokka's life.

-I’m also considering having Katara join the Gaang at the end of book two.

...

-Sparkle Sparkle Moon Girl.

[girlactionfigure]

It’s Sunday 7:30am and my heart hurts. We’re about to start the last week of summer vacation and a beautiful 17 year old girl, Rina Shnerb, won’t be starting a new year. She was brutally murdered by radical islamists for having the nerve, as a Jew, to go swimming with her family.

Her brother and father who were severely injured in this attack are improving medically. They went swimming and a Palestinian terrorist detonated a bomb which killed Rina and injured them. They might be improving medically but are scarred emotionally forever. Trust me, I know.

Then last night, the Israeli security cabinet approved a very rare preemptive strike on Iran forces in Syria. The Irani plan was to attack northern Israel with militarized drones. Israel prevented it. Can’t help but imagine what would have happened. What could have happened.

The fact that Iran is trying everything in its power to establish an army in Syria is, in and of itself, terrifying and highly disturbing. The fact that they were going to use drones to murder innocent people who did nothing other than live in Israel says everything about Iran.

The fact of the matter is both the murderers of Rina and the operators of those Iran drones are one and the same: Radical Islam. These are two isolated events among over 600 attempts by radical Islam to attack Israel in 2019. Most prevented by the mossad. 600! Think about that.

What most of you, reading this, haven’t yet understood is that Israel is not the enemy of radical Islam; we all are. The western world is. They say it loud and clear, including from within the congress and the Israel Knesset. The goal of radical Islam is to take over our world.

I am trying very very hard to find the light at the end of this tunnel but the shadow that radical islam is casting over the world is expanding, and beautiful women and children are paying the ultimate price. The worst part is how silent the world is to these atrocities.

What the world has not yet understood is that there is zero difference, ZERO, between the ideology of Hamas, Hizbolloh, ISIS, Boko Haram, and the rest of them. They all have the same mission. They say it clearly, but you’re not listening.

The only thing I keep telling myself, as I try to grasp onto some optimism, is that for the first time in history, the Israeli security cabinet can preemptively attack our enemies before they accomplish their goal. For the first time, it’s in our hands and we won’t hesitate!

And how could one speak of Israel and the regional conflict without mentioning the poison being spread by the left about Israel’s right to exist? I truly hope the great Democratic Party gets their sh_t together and outs the dangerous radicals from within. Sooner than later.

We just commemorated 90 years since the Hebron Massacre. Folks, enough with the fake narratives. There was no occupation then. THERE WAS NO STATE OF ISRAEL THEN! And yet, innocent Jews were massacred by Arabs. Because that is what this conflict is about, Arabs murdering Jews.

Now going to start my day with a cup of coffee on the streets of Jerusalem. I’m going to try to do what Rina and Ari would want me to do, live life, celebrate our home, but it is becoming increasingly difficult and my heart hurts from all this hatred. It must stop! I miss him.

Hillel Fuld‏

[yellowjets]

Response to Ilhan Omar 2.0

Two undeniable truths about Ilhan Omar: she hates Trump and she hates Israel. You cannot argue this. Omar has made it her mission to cause fear of Israel in the Democratic party, misrepresent them, use that fear to incite more hatred against Trump, rally against him, and further her own political agenda.

1. "Under pressure from Donald Trump"

What the average American may not understand, is that Bibi doesn't do anything he doesn't want to do. Trump's comments may have been the green light to go ahead with this decision, but it is highly likely it would have happened anyway. Israel gets pressure from many world leaders about other issues and Bibi chooses not to listen. Trump does not hold some sort of power over him, and Omar suggesting otherwise is really just an attempt at causing more fear of Trump on the left.

2. "Trump's Muslim ban"

Ahh yes, the old Muslim ban, something that never actually happened. Again Omar uses a false American concept to sweep the real reasons she's been banned under the rug. Both Omar and Tlaib are supporters and advocates of BDS, a movement that is widely accepted as not only anti-jewish, but also has been proven to heavily effect Arabs living in the West bank in a negative way. All it does is breed hatred towards the Jewish state and leads to boycotts of Jewish businesses outside of Israel. (Remember the last guy who did that?) This is the reason they are refused entry, not because of faith. You really think the leader of any other country would allow people in who directly call for the boycott of said country and its people? Absolutely not. But of course, Omar knows she can lie about this because people are ignorant and will not bother looking for correct information.

3. "Limits our abilities to learn from Israelis"

Yay! The first true statement. Unfortunately it's irrelevant considering its pretty difficult to learn from people you're busy boycotting. Literally no one, not a single person on this planet actually believes you want to "learn from Israelis". This was an expose Israel mission from the get go. One that has been conducted many times before, and usually ends up with not much to expose, and turns into some libellous exercise instead. Recently there was an assertion in a final year test in Australia that the IDF destroys homes in the West bank because the Muslim population refuses to accept Judaism. This is unbelievably untrue, and extremely damaging to Jews everywhere. This is the sort of mess Omar and Tlaib would have come back spouting. If you don't believe me, two seconds ago Omar was talking about a non existent Muslim ban in Israel.

4. "Resisted peace efforts"

Now I'm not exactly sure which peace efforts Bibi has participated in, but when the most recent peace deal has been rejected by the Palestinian government, Hamas is still firing rockets from Gaza and organising protests that involve incendiary kites and balloons, as well as Molotov cocktails and burning tires, the Palestinian government is still encouraging terrorism from the West bank by paying out families of terrorists, and changing the schoolbooks in Palestinian classes to be even more anti-jewish, when all of this is realised, it really fair to say that Israel has resisted peace?

5. "Restricted movement of Palestinians"

I think you spelt "Israelis" wrong. Palestians, while yes they do have to go through rigorous security and checkpoints between borders, are able to move freely between all areas of the West bank and Israel. Israelis, however, are unable to go to many parts of Palestinian run areas in the West bank, many of which include holy sites for the Jewish people. A Palestinian, may take any bus in Israel or the West bank, an Israeli may not. Unless of course Omar means Israel blowing up terror tunnels... That would tend to restrict Palestinian movement, but I'm sure any normal person would agree to that one.

6. "Limited public knowledge of the brutal realities of the occupation"

My FAVOURITE! Just because you, Omar, seem to have very limited knowledge of pretty much anything Israel/Palestine related, it doesn't make that Bibi's fault. The truth is out there, maybe like, go on Wikipedia as a starting point. The reality of the "occupation" is that Gaza is uninhabited by Jews, and has had no IDF presence for the last 5 years. The West bank has areas totally run by the PA where Jews cannot enter, and an IDF presence to limit terrorist attacks on Jewish civilians. That is the reality.

7. "Aligned himself with islamaphobes like Donald Trump"

Fair point, also irrelevant when you yourself align with and support terrorists who openly call for the destruction of the Jewish state, and the wiping out of the Jewish people.

8. "It is my job..."

It is not your job to lie about the realities of the conflict, to express biased support for one side, attempt to go to a country with the intent to "expose" (read: lie about) it, and then whinge about how you weren't allowed the opportunity to learn from them when you have already expressed intent to boycott those who could teach you.

9. "Insult to democratic values"

My right to kill someone is outweighed by their right to live. Your right to go to a country with the intent of supporting it's enemies, who have called for its destruction and the murder of its people is similarly, outweighed by their right to live.

Final thoughts:

Israel made the right decision. These women would have come in with the intent to slander Israel when they got out. That would inflame the already existing conflict even more and potentially cost lives of both Jewish and Palestinian civilians. For Omar and Tlaib to sit there and whine about it is pathetic. They know why they can't go, they know by making a fuss they will gain support, but Israel knows the cost of letting them in will be greater.