#neither of which are things israel has done

[sweaterkittensahoy]

UN: OMG Israel you can't bomb those nazis!!

Me: Hey, UN, I know you're busy putting rules on Israel you have never put on anyone else, but you gonna do anything about one of the countries on your human rights' committee harboring Assad? A country noted for killing anyone who pisses off their dictator?

UN: Assad isn't in Iran!

Me: I meant Russia. But while I have you here, we gonna talk about how Assad killed 200k of his own people and buried them in mass graves, and maybe that's something you should, you know, condemn him for?

UN: JEWS ARE FIGHTING FOR THEIR LIVES AND POSSIBLY CREATING LONG-TERM CHANGE IN THE MIDDLE EAST.

Me: I know. It's sort of astounding that you're not routinely explaining to people how everything Israel has done is within the rules of war you helped define and is not, in fact, genocide or anything near it.

UN: ISRAEL YOU HAVE TO GIVE WATER TO GAZA!!

Me: Okay, so back to you demanding things of Israel you never demanded of any other country at war...

[pargolettasworld]

So, because I am incurably, morbidly curious, I watched Jessie Gender's four-hour-and-seventeen-minute-long video on . . . well, the title suggests "Zionism, Antisemitism, and the Left." To her credit, Gender does touch on all three of these topics, though not with the same degree of skill, graciousness, or understanding of the topics at hand. I've just had a very nice dinner, and I'm feeling generous, so let's see how this video stacks up. Strap in. This is going to get long.

I should admit right off the bat that I'm only a casual, occasional watcher of Jessie Gender. I'm not a deep fan, and I'm sure there is Jessie Gender Lore™ out there that I'm not aware of, but I think I've seen enough of her videos to get a general sense of her house style. This video hits a lot of the hallmarks of her style. She speaks very fast and very passionately, occasionally trips over her own words (something that I've done many a time, so I really do feel that), and is inordinately fond of nominalizations. She's especially fond of the word "ostracization," for some reason, which drives me nuts because "ostracism" is right there. So, in style, it appears to hew to the Jessie Gender House Style pretty well.

On to the video itself. The first thing I will observe about it is that it is in every possible way a meeting that could have been an email. There was no need for this to be the same length as the Extended Edition of The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003). There's a lot of padding, significant digressions, and a certain degree of repetition. It's easy to forget the beginning of the video by the time you're an hour into the thing.

The major question that hangs over this opus is: Why, and for whom, was it made? I'm honestly not sure who the intended audience for this thing is, nor why Gender felt that she had to make it. She alludes in the first half hour to feeling like she's lost the trust and support of some of her Jewish fans/friends/acquaintances/Patreon patrons, and she chalks it up to a previous video that she made (which I have not seen, and which I am not inclined to seek out). But neither the structure nor the thesis nor the conclusion of the video seem like they would win back any of these folks.

I don't think that Jewish viewers are her intended audience -- certainly not with the way she talks about Jews throughout the video. I'm also having a hard time believing that really committed leftists are her audience, either, since I don't think she's really saying much that leftists haven't already heard, or offering new perspectives on her topic(s). And anyone who has made it this far into the year of 5784 and is still undecided about the contemporary iteration of The Jewish Question is probably not going to be interested in sitting through nearly four and a half hours of relentless lecture. So I'm still left wondering why, and for whom, did Jessie Gender make this video?

Gender assures us, her viewers, of several things that are meant to be reassuring. She's done lots and lots of research, for one thing. And she's asked some-of-her-best-friends-who-are-Jewish to be sensitivity readers. We're given to understand that we are hearing the nitpicked, edited, and polished version of the script. I'd hate to see what the first draft looked like . . .

She also tells us that there are going to be lots of Foreign Words And Names, and that she and her mouth-hole have A Hard Time pronouncing Foreign Words And Names. Her loyal staff have made her a pronunciation guide -- which appears to have been used perhaps as a drinks coaster, since there are some howlers here. The Jews originating from the MENA regions are the "Misrai" (Mizrahi) Jews, the first Prime Minister of Israel was "David Ben-Gron" (David Ben-Gurion), the Revisionist Zionist leader was "Zeeeeeeeeev Zarbinsky" (Ze'ev Jabotinsky), and the Palestinian uprisings of 1987 - 1993 and 2000 - 2005 go by the name "Infitada" (Intifada).

You know that phrase "If white people can learn to say Tchaikovsky and Schwarzenegger, they can learn to say [your name from an African or Asian language]?" I agree completely with the conclusion, but I question the premise. Jessie Gender makes me question the premise harder. If she had any real interest in the topic, she would have practiced those names, but I don't think she does, so she didn't.

Moving on to the actual content of the video. It's . . . weird. Jessie Gender begins the video believing that Zionism is an evil force for colonialism, White supremacy, oppression, and genocide. She ends the video believing that Zionism is an evil force for colonialism, White supremacy, oppression, and genocide. But along the way, she's confronted with quite a lot of inconvenient facts that threaten to complicate this perspective.

Gender devotes roughly two hours and fifteen minutes of her video, a smidge over half of the runtime, on three segments that offer a history of Zionism, the iterations of Zionism as a political ideology, and what she calls "Zionism as emotion," which is a condescending way to refer to the importance of Zionism to Jews. I'd guess that her research for these segments might have surprised her. It turns out, per Jessie Gender, that there is both a reason behind and a context for nineteenth-century Zionism, quite a lot of logic behind why the Jews wanted to go to Israel, and ample evidence that a majority of Jews have some kind of stake in both Israel and some variation of Zionism.

The reason I think that this research might have surprised her is that she ends each of these segments with a small diatribe about the evil colonialist, capitalist, oppressive, genocidal force that is Zionism, even as the segments suggest nuance, logic, and reason behind the philosophy. We can't have that on a good lefty video, though, can we? The more Gender confronts evidence that there is more to Zionism than meets her eyes, the more she doubles down, digs in her heels, and refuses to accept even the barest shreds of non-negativity about Zionism. Every now and then, she comes up with a lovely sentence or two that shows some understanding of a Jewish perspective on the world, but then furiously backpedals -- we mustn't forget that this Jewish perspective of oppression, mass murder, and international blame has only led to the Evil Of Zionism, after all.

What's really fascinating is how hard she works to avoid blaming actual Jews for all of this evil. I think she's doing this with the best of intentions. A for effort. C for effect. She wants to make a distinction between "Zionism" and "Judaism," in the sense of "Zionism does not equate to Judaism, so being antisemitic to Judaism because you hate Zionism is bad." She tries so hard that she loses sight of the actual people involved. There are a lot of places where she talks about "Judaism" where what she actually means is "the Jews." Or, as she calls us, "Jewish people." Which isn't bad, and it isn't really wrong, but it doesn't quite communicate the sense of Am Yisrael that is at the heart of Zionism.

In fact, she's so desperate to separate Zionism from Jewish people that she starts to talk about it almost as an individual character in the story, with agency, desires, wishes, and goals of its own, totally disconnected from the people who created it. Zionism demands the genocide of Palestinians, Zionism needs colonialism, Zionism has a nice lunch date with neoliberalism and spends the afternoon browsing department stores with capitalism. In effect, Zionism becomes the dragon, and Gender really wishes that the passive, easily-led Jewish people would unite behind some White Knight and slay the dragon so everyone could be happy and free and leftist. Despite the two hours she spent on her deep dive into the history and meaning of Zionism, she cannot fathom why the Jewish people don't just do this.

I said earlier that quite a lot of this video consists of padding. Gender identifies herself as a lefty anarchist, opposed to nation-states, capitalism, neoliberalism, the United States, the British Empire, Israel, Joe Biden, "Ka-MAH-la" Harris, transphobia in Western societies . . . the usual suspects. Frequently, especially in the back half of the video, she'll wander off into long fantasias about the crimes against liberty perpetrated by the West at large, as well as their character Capitalism, and then remember that this is supposed to be a video about Zionism, and then finish with the equivalent of "Peter Rabbit did sort of that kind of thing, too."

One of the alleged purposes of this video is to discuss Antisemitism On The Left, but Gender . . . pretty much elides doing that. She gets close a couple of times, and she does grudgingly admit that some leftists coming from some branches of leftism might sometimes say things that might be antisemitic, and that's Bad, and it makes Jewish people feel Unsafe and Not Inclined To Agree With Leftists that The Dragon Known As Zionism Must Be Slain Heroically. But don't stress about it. The important thing is that Israel Must Stop Its Genocide and Palestinians Should Have Self-Determination (which is only withheld from them by Israel -- excuse me, by Zionism -- and certainly not by those eminently-justified-if-a-little-uncouth plucky fighters, Hamas.

There are quite a lot of lengthy quotes from Sources, read by guest stars, which is a nice touch to break up the video. The vast majority of these Sources -- especially the ones in the "history of Zionism" segment -- are not actually written by Zionists. You get a lot of academic pontificating about the failures, shortcomings, and nefarious activities of Zionism, but you hear almost nothing from actual Zionists, especially contemporary Zionists. This does not look nearly as good or as well-researched as it's meant to look.

So what do we get in the end, after four hours and seventeen minutes of watching this? Honestly . . . not much. Gender gives enough background on the history of Zionism, antisemitism, and Jewish attitudes toward Israel that hardcore leftists watching will be more annoyed than convinced. She condescends to both Jews and Arabs, mentioning repeatedly that she, as a White Gentile, really doesn't have any business butting in on these complex questions -- but that's not going to stop her from butting in like the lefty shiksa she is! She's too mealy-mouthed to come right out and say anything blatantly antisemitic, but disdain for Jewish concepts of homeland, belonging, origin, and self-determination pervade the whole thing.

I don't think that Jessie Gender is an idiot -- she seems to be pretty smart, and has both a firm sense of her own political philosophy and the stick-to-it-ive-ness to do far more research into things like the development of Zionism and the history of antisemitism than one might expect. But the video really is, to bring up a playwright from the hated West, "full of sound and fury, signifying nothing."

[catsbeaversandducks]

From Jubilate Agno By Christopher Smart (1763)

"For I will consider my Cat Jeoffry.

For he is the servant of the Living God duly and daily serving him.

For at the first glance of the glory of God in the East he worships in his way.

For this is done by wreathing his body seven times round with elegant quickness.

For then he leaps up to catch the musk, which is the blessing of God upon his prayer.

For he rolls upon prank to work it in.

For having done duty and received blessing he begins to consider himself.

For this he performs in ten degrees.

For first he looks upon his forepaws to see if they are clean.

For secondly he kicks up behind to clear away there.

For thirdly he works it upon stretch with the forepaws extended.

For fourthly he sharpens his paws by wood.

For fifthly he washes himself.

For sixthly he rolls upon wash.

For seventhly he fleas himself, that he may not be interrupted upon the beat.

For eighthly he rubs himself against a post.

For ninthly he looks up for his instructions.

For tenthly he goes in quest of food.

For having consider'd God and himself he will consider his neighbour.

For if he meets another cat he will kiss her in kindness.

For when he takes his prey he plays with it to give it a chance.

For one mouse in seven escapes by his dallying.

For when his day's work is done his business more properly begins.

For he keeps the Lord's watch in the night against the adversary.

For he counteracts the powers of darkness by his electrical skin and glaring eyes.

For he counteracts the Devil, who is death, by brisking about the life.

For in his morning orisons he loves the sun and the sun loves him.

For he is of the tribe of Tiger.

For the Cherub Cat is a term of the Angel Tiger.

For he has the subtlety and hissing of a serpent, which in goodness he suppresses.

For he will not do destruction, if he is well-fed, neither will he spit without provocation.

For he purrs in thankfulness, when God tells him he's a good Cat.

For he is an instrument for the children to learn benevolence upon.

For every house is incomplete without him and a blessing is lacking in the spirit.

For the Lord commanded Moses concerning the cats at the departure of the Children of Israel from Egypt.

For every family had one cat at least in the bag.

For the English Cats are the best in Europe.

For he is the cleanest in the use of his forepaws of any quadruped.

For the dexterity of his defence is an instance of the love of God to him exceedingly.

For he is the quickest to his mark of any creature.

For he is tenacious of his point.

For he is a mixture of gravity and waggery.

For he knows that God is his Saviour.

For there is nothing sweeter than his peace when at rest.

For there is nothing brisker than his life when in motion.

For he is of the Lord's poor and so indeed is he called by benevolence perpetually—Poor Jeoffry! poor Jeoffry! the rat has bit thy throat.

For I bless the name of the Lord Jesus that Jeoffry is better.

For the divine spirit comes about his body to sustain it in complete cat.

For his tongue is exceeding pure so that it has in purity what it wants in music.

For he is docile and can learn certain things.

For he can set up with gravity which is patience upon approbation.

For he can fetch and carry, which is patience in employment.

For he can jump over a stick which is patience upon proof positive.

For he can spraggle upon waggle at the word of command.

For he can jump from an eminence into his master's bosom.

For he can catch the cork and toss it again.

For he is hated by the hypocrite and miser.

For the former is afraid of detection.

For the latter refuses the charge.

For he camels his back to bear the first notion of business.

For he is good to think on, if a man would express himself neatly.

For he made a great figure in Egypt for his signal services.

For he killed the Ichneumon-rat very pernicious by land.

For his ears are so acute that they sting again.

For from this proceeds the passing quickness of his attention.

For by stroking of him I have found out electricity.

For I perceived God's light about him both wax and fire.

For the Electrical fire is the spiritual substance, which God sends from heaven to sustain the bodies both of man and beast.

For God has blessed him in the variety of his movements.

For, tho he cannot fly, he is an excellent clamberer.

For his motions upon the face of the earth are more than any other quadruped.

For he can tread to all the measures upon the music.

For he can swim for life.

For he can creep."

Art by Incidental Comics

[fairuzfan]

If you can't see the difference between a diaspora Jew who has seen the violence inflicted on their community throughout history and the world for their entire existence since childhood and genuinely believes they will never be safe until they have somewhere to go that is made up of mostly Jews (and thinks that place might as well be 'where they came from'), and a Christian who wants all the Jews and Muslims back where they belong so that Jesus will come back or just so that 'their country' won't have Jews or Muslims anymore, and you believe those two people deserve the same scorn and violence, and that their Zionism is virtually indistinguishable, you're not a good person. I'm sorry you're just not.

My relatives aren't evil for thinking Israel should exist, they're just scared because they know what an angry, hateful world has done and can/will do to scattered Jews. They want to believe that there is a place in the world that is safe for Jews to live. (Whether Israel actually is that is beside the point- it isn't but that's beside the point).

And I'm a Bundist (not explaining it look it up idc) but with how things have been lately (and always really) I can't say I don't see the appeal.

Obviously Israel's government in general and the Likud party in particular is steeped in genocidal intent and abhorrent racism. Obviously the discrimination, colonization and brutalization of Palestinians should end. Obviously Israel should no longer be what it is- a militaristic puppet state by which the US keeps its hands in the middle east/swana region.

But don't you dare say that the Hobby Lobby CEO and my sister have the exact same Zionism or reasons for it.

I only say any of this bc you reblogged a post essentially saying all Zionism is the same and deserves the same treatment and seeing as diaspora Jews are neither the biggest material nor political backing force behind Israel, and also our fears are completely founded, I can't let you express that belief without at least making an effort to correct it.

(Also my sister technically just believes that Jews should be able to safely visit or live in the Levant, which we're indigenous to- and if you don't believe that where tf do you think we came from bc we didn't just grow out of the ground in NYC one day holding bagels I'll tell you that but I digress- but doesn't like the Israeli gov or its actions. So that may not even be Zionism according to you but that's what she calls it.)

Ok. Right now journalists are live blogging the massacre of my people and no one is lifting a finger and in fact sending them bigger and badder weapons. You're very heartless. I don't care if you don't think I'm a good person but I'm sad that you're not one either.

[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.

[angrybell]

The West - including the Biden Administration, the United Nations, the EU, and a host of “liberal” democracies - put the gun in the hand of the Hamas terrorist who killed her. They have excused, ignored, and funded Hamas and PA. They do this under the guise of “humanitarian” donations.

All those donations have done have ensured that something which should have been settled in one war in 1949 continues to this day. No other nation on this planet has had to deal with a situation like this. No other set of “refugees” are treated like the Arabs who fled during the 1948 - 1949 Israeli War of Independence.

Gina is dead because the rest of the world never said “enough”, the matter has been decided and moved on. They never required the Egyptians, Jordanians, Syrians, and Lebanese to end the apartheid practices, practices which deny basic liberties to people who are born with their borders from attaining, among other things, citizenship, employment in their chosen professions, ownership of land, and host of other things that reduced the Arabs to islands of concentration refugee camps in Arab countries.

Egypt and Jordan bear particular blame. Both controlled sections of occupied Israel, sections that they cynically renamed as colonizers do. Changing the Judea and Samaria into “The West Bank” while Egypt kept the Gaza Strip. Both had the power to establish a “Palestinian State”. Neither did. Rather they incorporated the land into their countries but denied the people living there full citizenship. They keep the camps quiet by promising them that they would eventually help them establish a “Palestinian” state once Israel had been eradicated.

And the West allowed this status quo to remain. They allowed and funded a network of refugee camps to exist. They turned a blind eye when they were transformed into cesspools of hate, preaching revenge against an enemy that had the temerity to not roll over and die. UNWRA schools for generations have taught antisemitism that even Hitler would say was over the top.

So, financed by the west, with no incentive to do anything but remain obdurate and unwilling to compromise, fermented terror groups, each more extreme than the other, sometimes only distinguished by whether they were Marxist in their ideology or whether they were Islamist.

No matter what atrocity, the money never stopped flowing to the Arabs. Raid across the border? Here’s your money. Smash the head of a baby open with a Kalashnikov becuase you don’t think the Jewish baby is worth the cost of a bullet? Here’s money to pay for more. They always claim that the money is subject to oversight, to make sure what it is not spent on anything but “humanitarian” goods. But the fact of the matter remains that every dollar, pound, duetschmark, and euro that the Arabs don;t have to have to spend on infrastructure is one that they can spend on the next bomb, suicide attacker, rocket, or rifle.

And, for all the “humanitarian” supplies that are purchased with the West’s money, does it make it to the, supposedly, innocent Gazans? Most of it doesn’t. Hams doesn’t even try to hide it. They released a video showing how they took pipes meant for Gaza’s water infrastructure and turned them into rockets. What did the west do? Protested Israel’s attempt to deprive Hamas of more materials to built rockets and tunnels.

And is Hamas ever held accountable for what it does? Have the Bow Street runners ever tried to serve a warrant on one of theirs when they visit the UK?

No.

Instead they target, harass, and hold back Israel. When Israel had the gall to destroy the nuclear weapons facility at Osirak, was it congratulated? No. Reagan with held weapons supplies.

Has Biden ever turned off the funds to Hamas prior to the most recent attack? I can’t find any evidence of that. Actually, we may still be funding the UNWRA camps right now. The progressive do a good show of commiserating with Israel and the Jews when Hamas kills Jews. Personally, I think they like seeing dead Jews. I think it allows the progressives show some moral outrage.

But is it followed up by anything concrete? Not really. They say “oh we’re sorry your people died. … But no, you can’t go in and finish off the people who kill your people. You have to follow all the rules that the terrorists brazenly ignore or we will sick the ICC - which admits it has no jurisdiction but is willing to say it does have jurisdiction despite its own rules - on you so that your people will be subject to arrest if they travel anywhere.

Is that unfair? I don’t really care.

Progressives/Liberals, whatever they are called, don’t care about Jews unless its how much the Jews are donating to their campaigns. The fact that Reform Judaism does not recognize this is as serious a lapse as when the American Jewish community gave FDR a pass for not calling out Hitler’s treatment of the Jews prior to and during the war. We as a Jewish community in the US and the world need to recognize that blind obedience to leftist groups is not something we should be doing, and quite frankly, is not something we will survive given the bigotry festering those parties which is becoming more and more mainstream.

Don’t believe me? Ilham Omar and Rashida Tlaib are congresswomen who have repeatedly made it clear they hate the Jews. And they have been barely censured. They have been funded by the Democratic Party and suffered no lack of support in primary season.

The argument is always that Israel hasn’t gone far enough to appease the Arabs. What more did Israel have to do to show they would appease them than when they put Jerusalem on the table back during the Clinton Administration’s brokered talks. Arafat rejected it because it wasn’t enough. He wanted an undefined more.

And the argument is even more ridiculous when it comes to Hamas. Hamas’ charter and statements are clear: they will not negotiate any settlement with Israel. Their goal is the destruction of the Jewish state and the removal or death of all Jews between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea. Incidentally, for those who don’t know, that is exactly what the various terror groups mean when they say “From the River to the Sea, Palestine shall be free.” Its is a statement of intent to commit genocide.

But the West keeps trying to a force a settlement where the PA and Hamas do not want a settlement. Only Israel does. That has been the same story since 1947 when the UN tried to create two states and failed. It failed, not because the Jewish yishuv rejected the plan. They accepted the plan even though it would mean the loss of Jersusalem and a small country bisected in part by an Arab state filled with people who had demonstrated history of trying to kill them. No, the Arabs rejected the proposal.

A Hamas coward killed her. But the West handed him the loaded weapon.

[random-knowone]

Hi! I'm glad you're posting so much about Harris. Almost no one I follow/am mutuals with has been talking about the election at all even though it's so close, even though they were doing so much back in 2020. Do you have any thoughts on that sort of situation? Maybe it's that they're tired of talking about it, but it's just really concerning. It's like the election doesn't even exist to them, and they stopped talking about it once they couldn't complain about it. (First they complained they didn't like Biden because of his support for Israel. Then he dropped out and Harris took over and they complained about her being a cop and supporting Israel. Then there were a few posts explaining that she was a prosecutor and actually did a lot to help people, and also that she also supports Palestine and wants a ceasefire. After that, it's been absolutely nothing from any of them for weeks. Many of them are Americans living in the US, too. (Though it's more understandable for someone outside the US to not want to bother, even mutuals and people I follow who live in other countries had been extremely vocal about US politics in the recent past, so it still feels strange for them to also be saying nothing about it now.)

Hey there, thanks for reaching out! I think it's a shame that I lot of folks aren't talking much about this election when so much is on the line.

I think a lot of people either don't realize how much is on the line, don't like Kamala for whatever reason they may have, or see it as "obvious" to vote for Kamala and don't bother talking about it because they assume that everyone already will.

My advice would be to talk about it yourself, make and reblog posts about it, be the change you wish to see. And hopefully, your mutuals will see those and reblog them, spreading the word. Especially posts about Kamala's plans for office, and her past record throughout her career, to help the folks who don't know enough about her to make up their minds.

A lot of people seem to have this idea that both parties are the same, or that Democrats never get anything done. I think a lot of this stems from people just not paying close attention to what goes on in politics, which is understandable. The main reason Democrats don't get as much done as they say they will is that they get blocked all the time by Republicans in the House and Senate, which the majority of people seem to forget about.

Many leftists on here don't like Kamala because she worked with Biden, or because of the ongoing issues with the war in Gaza, or because they just don't think she's left-wing enough. The best way to address these types is to remind them that even if they don't like Kamala, she's better than Trump. And one of them is going to be our next president, no matter what. An election isn't about picking the person who matches your values to a T, it's about choosing which of two options you prefer, even if neither are perfect.

In the case of people you're close with, you can talk to them about their views on this election, and answer any questions they might have, or address disinformation they heard.

The most important thing is to be kind and understanding, because at their hearts, everyone wants what's best for our country, and for their loved ones. We just don't always agree on what that looks like. The best way to convince people is to figure out what issues are important to them, and explain how Kamala is the best candidate for them.

[daphneyoumustmakehaste]

I have nowhere else to spew my politics garbage so I'm choosing tumblr as you do. Focusing on America and Britain here because that is what I know best and its what I study.

It is so so aggravating whenever I see people (specifically left wingers or left-centrists such as democrats and Labour voters) discourage people from voting third parties/candidates. A few years ago, I would have been foaming at the mouth at this statement. I remember a couple years back (when I was literally like…14) I posted on here encouraging people to vote Biden because “no one wants Trump”. But now I’m older, and Biden has been exposed as the decaying, wicked old man that he is (but my opinion on Biden is neither here nor there and has little to do with the point I want to make, so if you Biden lovers can just shut up and block me if this makes you mad please x) I’ve come to realise that voting for third candidates is an essential part of democracy.

Almost the same argument is used whenever left-wingers say they want to vote for third parties. “You’re going to divide the left. We need to get [Republicans/Conservatives] out of power. Please vote for [Democrats/Labour].” And I do agree. That voting for third parties and candidates will have consequences in dividing the left. However, voters DO NOT OWE their votes to left parties purely because they are “left wing”. Just because a candidate is “the better option” does not mean you owe them your vote.

Over the past couple of decades, I think a mindset has formed of “no matter what this party does, I’m going to vote for them because i don’t like the other option.” You don’t think politicians know this is a popular mindset? This allows them to say and do and vote for whatever they want with minimal repercussions. Just in 2024 alone, Joe Biden has become increasingly more defensive over Israel despite MANY of his 2020 voters opposing this. And fair enough. If that is what Joe Biden believes in, then I think he should freely express it. But if voters don’t want to vote for him on account of that, you cannot guilt trip them into voting for him because Donald Trump is an awful option (which he is, and obviously I don’t want him to become president, but it’s a sacrifice I think people should be willing to accept).

Sir Keir Starmer has moved the Labour Party to more centre ground ever since he came into power in 2020. Again, that’s fine. He should do what he thinks is best for the party. But if voters don’t want to vote for him on account of that, you cannot guilt trip them into voting for Labour because “conservatives are worse.”

I think America are in a much more vulnerable position than the UK. Conservatives have little to no chance at winning the next election, and I think Sunak knows this (despite what he might say). Trump stands a very good chance, and I think this is account of the split that’s originated on the left. That isn’t the voters fault. I think it can partly be attributed to Biden dividing the left, and I think it can also be attributed to the way politics works. Biden was never a strong candidate, even in 2020. The main thing he had going for him was “better than Trump.” But unfortunately, Trump is back for another round, Biden is running again, and we’re in the same position we were last year (history really does repeat itself).

I do think it’s a difficult argument and there is no one way to go about it. Like I said above; I do not want Donald Trump to become President again. I do not wish for another five years of tory rule. But I also don’t want to forget everything bad Biden has done, and I don’t want to forget the shitty, bootlicking things Starmer’s Labour has said.

At the end of the day, the message here is that voters should VOTE FOR WHO THEY WANT. If you want to vote for Biden or Labour because you don’t want the alternative in power, go ahead. The whole point of voting is to strengthen democracy. By “forcing” people to vote for “the better option, even if they’re not the best.” Instead of looking down on the people who choose not to vote for them, maybe you should look upwards and ask why those in power are not doing everything they can to attract and keep voters.

[juana-the-iguana]

Navigating media during war

Here are some tips to navigate the conflict without a paid subscription. Disclaimer, I am based in the United States and this advice is for people in the US. These tips may apply for all wars, but I wrote this with the Israel-Hamas conflict in mind.

My qualifications: I am a reporter who has worked on both local, state, national and international stories. I have covered breaking news, and have done enterprising news and investigative journalism. I will graduate with a MA in Journalism in a month. 

Reasons to question my authority: I have less than five year of professional experience. I have never reported on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, or anywhere else in the Middle East. I speak neither modern Hebrew nor Arabic. 

Moving on:

The best tip I can give you is pick a few good news sources and wait two days after any given event or incident before claiming to understand what happened.

In the United States, our news industry is incentivized toward breaking news, which means that organizations sometimes air information without having time to thoroughly fact check it. This becomes especially evident in times of war, when it is hard to obtain information and even on-the-ground reporters don't have the full picture of what's happening.

You are not going to find a perfect news organization. They're all going to fuck up in some capacity. If you have a strong stance on this issue, you're going to be more sensitive to those mistakes and real or perceived biases. (And, for the record, it is possible for one organization to hold multiple biases depending on the time of day, presenter and facet of the war being discussed.) That's why it is genuinely important to consume multiple news sources.

So if you're wondering why I chose these sources it's because a) they're free, b) they issue corrections when they're wrong and c) they do not engage in disinformation.

In no particular order: BBC, Reuters, NBC, MSNBC, CNN, AP. You should not rely on only one of these. You should fact-check these against bias sources that don't outright lie. 

Now onto the sources you should avoid. Let's get into disinformation: What is it? 

Disinformation is the intentional spreading of false information. It's lying. Misinformation is inaccurate information that is spread around, but not done with malice.

All news organizations have misinformation at some point. You should NEVER trust a news organization that engages in disinformation, about anything, unless several years have passed, the people responsible for the disinformation have been thoroughly purged from the group and they cite every goddamn thing they said.

The two big organizations I recommend avoiding because they engage in disinformation are Fox News and Al Jazeera.

Fox News lied about the 2020 election in the United States and actively contributed to an attempted insurrection. Al Jazeera is an arm of the Qatari state and has lied repeatedly about, well, just about everything of interest to the Qatari government, but especially Israel. They have made several highly consequential lies in this ongoing conflict that have had tangible, catastrophic consequences on the entire globe. 

Advocacy groups are not news outlets.

Also, don't trust terrorist organizations. Yes, the UN, WHO, Amnesty International and pretty much every NGO under the sun and the vast majority of news organizations cite them, but that's not because they're reliable, it's because they're the only group releasing information from Gaza.

You shouldn't take the IDF at face value either, but if what the IDF is saying is verified by the US, EU and/or other reliable, third parties, then that information is probably true. 

No news source is perfect. That's just a fact. I cannot stress the importance of looking at multiple sources.

Here are some things to look out for when watching/reading the news.

- If a news source is attributing facts to two different sources, ask yourself, "why?" Information is hard to come by. Sometimes one source doesn't report everything you want to know. But sometimes you know your source is unreliable, you don't have any alternatives, so you want to distance yourself from that. What does this look like? 

You might see people cite two sources to report death counts in Gaza: the Palestinian Health Ministry, which is run by Hamas, and Save the Children which analyzes information about the number of children killed. Save the Children gets the estimated number of deaths from Hamas. 

- Does it make sense to have this information at this time? If there was an explosion and a government states that 500 people died in it, well, how much time did it take them to count those bodies? Does that sound feasible?

- When you're listening to eye-witness interviews, do their perspectives or narratives match up with the physical scenes you are seeing? They might not be lying, it could be a miscommunication, but for the context it is presented in, it might not be accurate.

Language to look out for:

Occupation, blockade, siege, war crimes, crimes against humanity, genocide, ethnic cleansing, legitimate military targets and apartheid are all distinct things. All of them, with the exception of apartheid, have specific legal definitions. If people are using these things interchangeably, maybe they're sharing opinions. That doesn't mean that what they're saying isn't valuable, but it does mean that you probably shouldn't cite them when debating international law.

Now let's elaborate on "occupation" for a second. Egypt occupied Gaza from 1949 to 1967. Then Israel occupied Gaza until 2005. In 2007 Israel started the blockade on Gaza and last month, after the 10/7 massacre, they started a siege. As noted above, these are distinct things.

If people are talking about occupation or settlements in the context of this conflict it means either one of four things:

- They are talking about the West Bank, which is under occupation and where settlements do exist

- They are talking about the history of Gaza pre 2005

- They do not know that Gaza isn't under occupation and that there are no longer settlements there (which means that they are not an informed source)

- Or they assume the entire Israeli state is occupying Palestine which, whether you like it or not, is not factually or correct

Just because something feels wrong doesn't mean it is illegal. Occupations, blockades, sieges, the use of white phosphorous and bombing areas where you know there are civilians are all legal in certain contexts. 

Legality might not matter to you personally, but when you're watching the news and trying to assess who is sharing facts and who is sharing opinions, you should keep this in mind.

Other notes:

- Rockets need fuel. Ventilation systems in tunnels need fuel. 

- Movies and tv shows are filmed in Gaza and the West Bank. If you see a photo of someone in a body bag texting or women laughing while painting a baby doll red, it might be a behind-the-scenes video from one of those things.

- There are a lot of AI generated pictures being used, especially in propaganda. Count fingers, arms, legs and look at backgrounds to see if what you are seeing makes sense. But for the love of god, if you don't like something, that doesn't mean it's AI.

- There are a lot of photos circulating from past wars. Be careful before you reblog. Reverse Google image search is your friend. 

- If you are not sure if something is real or not, wait a week. If the US, EU and dozens of journalists say it is true, believe it.

Finally, social media. When is it appropriate to use social media for news?

News aggregates are usually okay. I'm talking places like r/worldnews. They are pulling from other news organizations, so they can repeat those flaws, but they give you a mix of headlines from multiple sources. And they'll very often post large parts, if not the entirety, of articles from sources from the New York Times, Washington Post and the Wall Street Journal that have paywalls in the comments. But also beware the comments because they can be disgusting.

Social media is also very good for sharing the individual human experience. The issue with that is that you can't always vet the person on camera or being spoken about, so they could be lying, spreading misinformation and it isn't the whole picture. 

This needs to be said again and again: social media dehumanizes people. You know this, but you will fall victim to it anyway. Your algorithm will do its best to show you the best versions of the people and groups you like, and the worst versions of the people and groups you don't like to make you feel justified in adopting dehumanizing beliefs. 

For anyone interested, I'm going to update the list of news sources I think are trustworthy in the next few days. I've found a few small, independent and/or foreign outlets that use open source intelligence (OSINT) in their reporting and they seem pretty reliable to me, but I want to vet them a bit further.

EDITED: Removed the name of a news organization that I previously said I thought was reliable. They did not issue a correction after uncritically repeating Hamas's lie that the al-Ahli hospital parking lot bombing was an Israeli airstrike that killed 500 people, and spent days repeating these false claims as if they were fact.

[nothing-an-iratze-cant-fix]

Thing is, you say "we've all been through Trump once" but what you seem to not be considering is that the Israel/Palestine conflict is more than 76 years old and, like you said, Trump has already BEEN the President once during it. What he did is -- and I cannot stress this enough -- NOWHERE NEAR as bad as what Biden has done and continues to do to Palestine. I'm not defending Trump as a man or as a politician, he's indefensible and a fucking monster, but Palestinians have been saying time and time again that things are worse, currently, under Biden than they ever were under Trump. There is no "lesser evil" and he's not a better option just because the horrors he's inflicting are foreign rather than domestic.

I’m really not, I’m just not divorcing the current situation in Palestine from its context. We can’t compare Trump’s term to Biden’s in terms of Palestine because the situation in Israel was different. We have no idea how Trump would have reacted to Netanyahu’s desperate last grab and Hamas’ abductions but I am 99% confident it wouldn’t have been any better than Biden’s because Trump is largely a puppet for others and also hates Muslims whoever they are. There’s a 1% chance he would randomly decide he was going to liberate Palestine and solve the “Middle East Peace Crisis” but I can guarantee you that would have gone badly too.

Objectively fewer people world-wide will suffer from Biden having a second term than Trump. Palestine is essentially not in play - neither of them will genuinely challenge or remove support from Netanyahu. If anything the chances of Biden having to eventually capitulate to pro-Palestinian democrats is higher than Trump having to give into … who? He’s running on a Christian Evangelical ticket. That’s the majority support for Israel in the US.

Trump wouldn’t do more for Palestine and in the current environment, he would possibly actually do worse, we can’t know and I hope we don’t have to find out. But he will do infinitely more to harm vulnerable people in America and elsewhere abroad.

It’s a monumentally shit situation which is tragically lose-lose for Palestine but there is on the whole a better and worse option.

[twopoppies]

You don’t have to publish the ask I just wanted to add my two cents. I think there are also a lot of outrageous claims re Ben on Twitter that aren’t proven or proven to come from unreliable/ manipulative sources. The only thing I could gather is that Ben, a Jew, loves Israel and posted one post about the war back in October where he also talked about a ceasefire and the desire that innocent civilians aren’t being attacked and harmed etc. on Twitter he also replied to a tweet that he for the record to make it clear obviously isn’t supporting genocide and apartheid etc. as far as I know he hasn’t said anything else for a while about the topic publicly now. We don’t know if he’s changed his mind on things or if him and Harry had open and challenging conversations. We have no idea.

Do I wish he’d take a stand? Sure, that’d be great!But I’m having a problem with false claims, lies and the dramatization that’s going on especially on Twitter calling Harry names based on too many unknown valuables regarding Ben and their potential discussions and Harry’s potential stand towards it all. Etc etc.

Hi, darling. Yes, I’ve seen a lot of jumping to conclusions floating around. And I do understand people’s anger and outrage and frustration.

From what I can tell, there’s also been some misunderstandings, For example, I saw this post

As far as I can tell, this youth group does nothing of the sort.

They do run programs to take teenagers to Israel, and 4 days out of that 5-week trip includes the option to stay at a military training ground (which is a weird, although very standard, part of these teen tours). However, the overall purpose of the trip itself is to create a love for and connection to Israel and being Jewish. Not to directly recruit members of the IDF.

While this concept is problematic in a number of ways, the above post is worded in an inflammatory way that unfortunately distorts the facts.

I don’t pay much attention to Ben unless I have to, so there may be other stuff he’s said/done that I’m not aware of, but I think it’s important to try and sift through information to separate fact from exaggeration.

It’s hard for people to see Harry not just work with people who haven’t called out the occupation and genocide, but to socialize with them, as well. And coupled with the fact that he hasn’t publicly said anything creates a some really negative and confusing feelings for a lot of his fans.

I know it’s very hard to try and remain fact-based when the horror of what’s happening in Gaza is very, very apparent. I know I’ve certainly been struggling with it. I’ve also seen many, many accusations thrown around about a lot of people that don’t have any proof attached to them.

I think one especially important point you made is that we don’t know if Harry has had open and challenging conversations with the people around him. I know that in dealing with people in my own life who are strong supporters of Israel, that this one on one type of conversation is the only way I’ve made any headway in opening their eyes. Cutting them out of my life without trying to do that first, would achieve nothing.

On a personal note, I really don’t want to have long conversations about this topic on my blog. I understand it’s very tempting to argue your side and share your opinions, but I have neither the time nor the energy to field that here. I’m sorry if that is upsetting to people.

[hiswordsarekisses]

Those who only want to do their own thing resent being told what to do - even by God.

Unfortunately, rebellion in the heart blinds the mind.

Hilariously, we think we know better than God. We see His Word as “rules” and “control” instead of instructions sent from the loving heart of the creator of the universe so that we would know how things were created to work, what works best, or doesn’t work at all. He wanted to protect us…

When we ignore the instructions and follow our own small-human-mind, it opens the door and invites spiritual, moral, and social chaos into our lives.

…Which we would know - if we weren’t ignoring the instructions.

Those who gladly follow the instructions are, as a result, given wisdom. Wisdom is not intelligence - wisdom is God given understanding and insight. You can be the smartest guy in the room and have no godly wisdom.

Those who have been given godly wisdom are able to realize God’s direction comes from the deepest love of His heart, and have learned (sometimes the hard way like me!) that life done God’s way is abundantly good, and life done our own way always - eventually- turns out badly.

Those who only do what is right in their own eyes - are doing evil in God’s. And as a result, that comes back to bite them - just like God tried to protect them from.

This is nothing new. The people during the time of Judges had begun to fall away and follow their own distorted judgement. Thinking they were wise, they became fools. They decided their opinions, rather than God’s written Word, was the best to guide them, and so they rebelled against the Lord.

Even in their “religion” and worship they began to do things their way, just like the way things are happening in churches right now. It didn’t start recently, this has been a thing since way back then.

Reading through chapters 17-21 of Judges is like the horrific things you hear about even today. A very clear example of how things spiral downward when we think we know best.

Both the book of Jude and the 2nd chapter of 2nd Peter can speak to that day - and this day - and all the days in between, because nothing changes. In the lives of those who live without God - evil takes hold.

Twice in Judges it is stated; “In those days there was no King in Israel. Everyone did what was right in His own eyes.” (17:6, 21:25)

This brought to mind how God says in Psalm 50:

“For you hate My instruction and cast My words behind you…”

and..

“… you thought I was just like you...”

And in Isaiah 55 He says:

“My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways My ways,” declares the Lord. “For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so My ways are higher than your ways and My thoughts than your thoughts.”

…And goes on to speak of the power and surety of His Word.

“There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way of death,” Proverbs‬ ‭14‬:‭12‬ says.

‬And even though we are “disobedient and rebel against Him, flinging His law behind our backs - in His great compassion, He did not put an end to us; nor did He forsake us, for He is a gracious and compassionate God.”(Nehemiah‬ ‭9‬)

He never stops reaching out. He never stops calling. But one day it will be the last day. Because He knows that while He is patient with the wicked, His people suffer.

And “In just a little while, He who is coming will come and will not delay.” Hebrews‬ ‭10‬:‭37‬

We have a King. The only right way is His way.

[avastyetwats]

The City of Love

Continued from here. @izzyeffinhands

Stede didn't even flinch when Izzy screamed at the top of his lungs at Flint who was apparently doing something wrong in his training. The blond's arms remained around his lover and his chin atop of his shoulder, his smile warm and soft and his tail wagging if he had one. He was a very happy boy just getting to be here with Izzy, loving on him and being clingy, as always. But he was used to it. It's been a thing between them for years where Stede just has to be near to his husband and touch him in some way. He was a very needy and clingy man but it was his way of showering Israel in love and affection. Whether with adoring words of praise and worship or soft little kisses and nuzzles. In this moment, it was both. He'd come from behind and wrapped his arms around him, kissing and nuzzling at his neck while begging they visit the top of the Eiffel Tower. They hadn't done much yet due to being busy with training and competitions and Stede was, of course, understanding. He was helping Izzy while doing his own little job of handing out condoms and neither men ventured out without the other. Stede would not visit anywhere without his love.

So he patiently waited for Izzy to scold Flint - which he found to be both endearing and sexy - and he couldn't help but smile when he mentioned Charles Vane. The man James Flint was so smitten over. Dare Stede say, in love with. The two seemed to be inseparable so soon after meeting and though Izzy was worried about Flint losing focus and becoming distracted, Stede was not. It seemed to fill him with even more determination to win and he was certainly happier which Stede was glad for, but he did understand Izzy's concern. "It's so sexy when you threaten someone.." He giggles against his neck, brushing his lips just under his jaw. "But I think you worry too much, darling." He presses a wet kiss to his neck just then. And when Izzy mentions staying a week after Paris, his face brightens.

"Really? Can we?" He's as happy as a puppy about to go for a car ride and he's peppering kisses all over his neck. Then another idea hits him and he beams. "Do you think we can make love on the Eiffel Tower, too?" Oh, how romantic would that be!? It would probably be difficult considering it was a public place but now the idea was stuck in Stede's head. Until he looks up and sees Flint. "Foot out a little further, dear! There you go." He smiles, the two of them acting like parents teaching their child some sport. Izzy was of course the better teacher with the most knowledge and experience, but considering Stede did win gold, he could be of some help sometimes. Really he was mostly just a tag-a-long -- always by Izzy's sides where he was his happiest.

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

An entire narrative brought down by a simple question.

What would you do?

What would you do?

What would you do if you were the leader of Israel?

A simple question.

The answer?

Not quite as simple.

--

Konstantin Kisin: October 7th has happened. Right. We-- it's happened. What should Israel have done in your opinion? That's all, that's all I'm asking.

Bassem Youssef: Not this.

Kisin: Okay, but not this. Okay, what should they have done.

Youssef: Not this.

Kisin: That's a negative. I'm asking what in the positive sense, what they should have done. How should they have reacted?

Youssef: My answer didn't change. Not this.

Kisin: But you say not like this, and you don't give a positive answer.

Youssef: Well, I have no idea either.

--

Is he the only pro-Palestinian supporter...

... that has fallen short of answering this question?

--

Piers Morgan: What would you have done if you'd been Israel after October 7?

Andrew Tate: That's a really interesting question.

Morgan: Given that Hamas last week said, we're going to try and do the same thing again and again and again, what would you do to defend the people of Israel?

Tate: I would have found out how our border was penetrated. I would have made sure that was impossible to do. I would have had large conversations and discourse during that period, which would probably take weeks, and then I would make it clear that there will be some repercussion unless we can come to peace terms.

Morgan: Hamas doesn't want peace.

Tate: Of course not.

--

Do you see how their narrative falls apart the moment the question is asked of what they would do had they been in that position?

Youssef just sits there saying, not this. Over and over again.

Implying that his nonaction would be path that he'd pursue.

And Tate is seeking to make peace with a militant terror group...

... that he himself admits has no desire in making peace.

Which effectively means he'll allow terror to rain on his people endlessly without action.

Do you believe them?

Because neither do we. The reason neither of them can answer the question that is so simple.

It's because they refuse to admit that not responding...

... demonstrates weakness...

... invites more massacres against your people.

So, what do they do?

The answer? Nothing.

Just more smoke and mirrors.

If you've been on the fence about what Israel should do in the face of a genocidal terror group led by the Islamic Republic Iran...

... ask yourself what you would do.

What would you do if your neighbors...

... massacred your son...

... massacred your daughter...

... massacred your nation...

... massacred your nation...

... massacred your nation?

--

A Hamas official has vowed to repeat the horrific terror attacks on Israel earlier this month “again and again” until the country is completely destroyed, insisting it has “no place on our land.”

Ghazi Hamad, a member of the militant group’s decision-making political bureau, warned that Gaza leadership would replicate the coordinated Oct. 7 attack, referred to by the terrorists as Operation al-Aqsa Flood, which killed more than 1,400 Israelis and took some 240 hostages.

“The al-Aqsa Flood is just the first time and there will be a second, a third, a fourth because we have the determination, the resolve and the capabilities to fight,” Hamad said in an Oct. 24 Lebanese television interview republished by British outlets Wednesday.

Hamad said the terrorist organization is willing to “pay a price.”

“We are called a nation of martyrs and are proud to sacrifice martyrs,” Hamad said. “Israel is a country that has no place on our land. We must remove that country because it constitutes a security, military and political catastrophe to the Arab and Islamic nations, and must be finished.”

[ Continued... ]

--

Israel will exist and will continue to exist until Islam will obliterate it, just as it obliterated others before it" (The Martyr, Imam Hassan al-Banna, of blessed memory).

[..]

Initiatives, and so-called peaceful solutions and international conferences, are in contradiction to the principles of the Islamic Resistance Movement. Abusing any part of Palestine is abuse directed against part of religion. Nationalism of the Islamic Resistance Movement is part of its religion. Its members have been fed on that. For the sake of hoisting the banner of Allah over their homeland they fight. "Allah will be prominent, but most people do not know."

[..]

There is no solution for the Palestinian question except through Jihad. Initiatives, proposals and international conferences are all a waste of time and vain endeavors.

[ Continued... ]

"You should attack every Jew possible in all the world and kill them." -- Fathi Hamad, political leader of Hamas, member of the Palestinian Legislative Council

"Israel is only the first target. The entire planet will be under our law." -- Mahmoud al-Zahar, Hamas Commander

==

Everyone who isn't infected with the Intersectional mind-virus knows that Israel is doing exactly what they should do and need to do, and that the responsibility for the results rests entirely with the Islamic terrorists who started the war in the first place, then hid behind the civilians.

[hero-israel]

I don't think the Biden administration has been withholding intelligence, I think that was just some really poor wording in the Washington Post article. all other reporting shows that there has been freely shared intelligence. the Biden administration want the intelligence that's being given to be used differently but it would be absurdly foolish for a very long list of reasons and go against standard practice to withhold it.

anyway so about realignment/reshaping operations. basically it's targeted strikes with the specific goal of creating a power vacuum which sucks other people into leadership positions who are more willing to sit down at the negotiating table and transition away from warfare. neither politicians nor the general public particularly like this method bc it's time-consuming due to the amount of intelligence gathering needed to ensure the ideal people are maneuvered into the ideal position. this method mitigates civilian casualties, doesn't flatten cities, and works far better than a ground offensive in situations like this and, given the small size of Gaza, a peace deal might have been possible by now if this had been done from the beginning.

as I said before, conventional warfare against an unconventional force doesn't work; it escalates the situation by turning the bystanders into sympathizers and turning the already sympathetic into being active in the movement, whatever the movement may be and for better or worse. this holds true in other situations as well; consider any situation with a state force vs a non-state force, such as the Boston Massacre, Bloody Sunday, and anything involving police violence. to quote the article in the post you linked regarding the Houthis: “And the use of force against the Houthis in the past […] has merely allowed the group to refine its military capabilities and portray itself as a heroic resistance movement, bolstering its legitimacy at home.” because even when the non-state force is the agitator or bad guy this still holds true. hence the IDF having to return to northern Gaza bc hamas has reemerged there and the unhinged people in the west supporting terrorists that they claim are heroic freedom fighters. hamas knows this on some level as well. they know they have no chance of winning in combat but they can win the propaganda war whilst recruiting new combatants to replenish what they lose after each new round of violence.

I do disagree with the author of that article about using an entirely diplomatic response in regards to terrorism bc that's unrealistic and frankly silly (and, as an USAmerican I'm compelled to quote the meme, don't touch our boats). but at the same time, to quote the article again, “[…] the United States has only bad options because of its failed approaches to Yemen over the past 20 years. Washington must not repeat its mistakes. Decades of experience have shown, by now, that military efforts to dislodge the Houthis are unlikely to be effective. Instead, they may merely further devastate the lives of the already struggling people of Yemen.” the author isn't wrong there. the USA spent two decades in the region with little to show for it, and unless Israel changes its method of taking on hamas soon then you guys will be speedrunning the same mistakes we did.

you can't fight an unconventional force via conventional means nor can you do diplomacy with undiplomatic people, but there are options other than doing nothing and fighting forever wars. I'm not as versed in armed conflict and counterinsurgency operations as I am foreign policy and propaganda, but there's been a century's worth of research into such things and this is what it indicates according to the experts.

the USAmerican advisors/admin are also aiming for a three-point plan of a multi-national regional security force to ensure everyone stays chill upon a ceasefire, supplying tons of stuff to rebuild, and a functional Palestinian Authority/government to lead the way to actual statehood. which seems to have some growing support among Israeli officials and surprisingly even neighboring states seem to be on board. this could actually result in a real end to the conflict though it may remain tense for some time and people may have to choose between getting justice or getting peace, similar to the aftermath of the Troubles in Ireland. there's no way this ends with confetti and parades. it will likely be depressing for both sides and have many variables that could cause everything to go off the rails and back into a cycle of violence. but despite the risks and current horrors, long term peace and stability seem more optimistic now than they have ever been.

I'm not among the people who expect a simple solution that magically solves one of the longest and most complicated geopolitical issues on the planet. and I don't have an opinion on what the course of action should actually be, I'm just aware of the likelihood of various things helping or hindering peace and wanted to at least try to explain some of the foreign policy stuff that tends to go over most people's heads. (I'm so sorry for this being so long)

.

[eruhamster]

Buddy. If Biden loses, Trump wins. Trump’s not going to stop the genocide, he’s also in Israel’s pocket as well, and not as susceptible to public outcry. And Trump is, like, openly calling to ban queer people, kill more immigrants, and just completely destroy democracy. There is a lesser evil here, and it’s the guy who only openly wants one group dead, not the guy who wants three groups dead.

I know that you think you're so smart for saying this like I haven't heard it a billion times, and I know you're not going to be swayed by anything I say, but I'm going to be honest just for anyone else that's looking at my blog:

Let's say we live in a universe where Biden is doing anything to stop the continuing removal of the rights of queer people. Let's say that the well-being of immigrants have improved under Biden. Neither of those things are true, and I know you know they aren't true considering how many anti-queer laws have been passed since 2020 while Biden has stayed silent on the matter and considering how just days ago Biden signed an executive order that has halted asylum seekers, but let's just say they are. Let's pretend.

You're not going to want to hear this, but: The US has been mass-murdering people abroad for a century and it has only gotten exponentially worse since GWB set us on the official fast-track to militaristic fascism with the creation of ICE and the Department of Homeland Security. The US is currently in its death throes. We are experiencing accelerationism, and we are experiencing many of the same things we saw in the Soviet Union in the lead-up to its collapse. Corruption is happening faster and more openly, our rights are being destroyed more quickly, politicians are quicker to solve problems with violence, our news media do not even bother fighting against the government which is why media blackouts during important protests are common, and we are living in a gerontocracy. We are on our way out as a nation. "The US will collapse in my lifetime" is now not a radical thought. 2 years ago over half of Americans believed the US's "democracy was in danger of collapse."

The US is on its way out, regardless of who is in power. The world will be an infinitely better place, and Americans will be better off once the US collapses. Liberals do not like hearing this because they have this idea in their heads that a nation collapsing means a free-for-all. That's not true. Everything ends eventually. And the US will end soon. But I think. Honestly? that if we continue to pick career politicians like Biden, they will be able to drag it out and kill far more people over a longer stretch of time as our lives get worse and we face worse fascism. Look at how things have gone in the last 4 years; there is no attempt to make things better. The march of fascism only continues. You protest, you get beaten or thrown in an unmarked van. With politicians like Biden, they are a brand of evil that may be able to get us circling the drain for a few more decades while we become poorer and poorer and our lives get exponentially worse. I could bring up now that he's made immigrants lives worse and has done nothing to stop the restrictions on queer and womens' rights, but even if I don't, even if we pretend he's been fine on that front - our lives across the board get worse purely from the increasing fascism.

I do not vote for war criminals. I do not want other people to vote for war criminals. Personally, I think the best way out of this situation is to vote third party for people who may actually do something to help. BUT. I know that's not reasonable. I know people like you will not vote third party because they think it's 'useless.' Instead, if Biden loses, it's the republican. I'm not voting for one of them ever. However, if Trump or anyone like Trump were to win, I think it would hasten the US's collapse. Even you seem to think that when you say 'completely destroy democracy.' I think that it may be a matter of years or one decade rather than multiple decades if we head down that path. And I think it's probably better with Trump versus with other career politicians like Ron DeSantis, who has done incredibly terrible things in Florida and has the potential to be an actual fascist dictator. I do not think someone like Trump actually knows what to do with power. It's why he chickened out during the Capitol riot. He wants the illusion of power; he wants to be worshipped, but he's inept. He's lazy, he's old, he's stupid. Even if he succeeded in a dictatorship it'd be unstable at best. And I think that in that sort of situation, we would potentially be better off in that it would be easier to see the total collapse and restructuring of this country (or maybe countries).

Liberals fear change so they are absolutely frightened at that idea, I get that. But I do think that there are only two good paths for the US to go down: inclusion of third parties and politicians who shake things up and legitimately care about their voterbase, or a complete and quick collapse, and I think that voting for Biden or any other career politician is the furthest option from that and thus the worst option. So "but Trump!" does not work on me. We saw 4 years of Trump. My life was not any meaningfully worse than it was with 4 years under Biden. The country was just more unstable and the news was just more likely to report on awful things, which made people even angrier(rightfully). I think our best bet is further destabilization so we can rise from those ashes, because otherwise we're trapped in this fascist, genocide-producing prison indefinitely.