#palestine needs to stop the propaganda

[mentallydatingahotcelebrity]

Ah yes, nothing like waking up in the morning to complete and total stupidity. Israel needs to wipe the floor with Hamas, and anyone else stupid enough to follow/support them. Grow up and grow a brain along with it, moron.

[chaiaurchaandni]

kinda relevant: i've been seeing weirdos on twitter refer to young Palestinian guys (aged 15-35) as military aged men, trying to imply that all such Palestinian men are potential hamas fighters, and therefore legitimate targets. they are literally hungering for excuses to kill as many Palestinians as possible while evading accountability

[infiniteglitterfall]

Me, looking through books on Palestine: "Ilan Pappé wrote one called 'The Biggest Prison On Earth?!' People in Gaza hate it being called a prison. There's an entire hashtag for it. There's been an account dedicated to collecting pics and videos of #TheGazaYouDontSee for 6 years.

"Is Pappé even Palestinian? oh god wait I can tell already. this is gonna be an 'Israeli apologist' isn't it." Internet: "Yeah, Pappé's Israeli."

Me: "For fuck's--- so people will believe Israelis unquestioningly if they're shit-talking Israel, but in all other situations, Israelis are all liars?"

Internet: "Pretty much. Also, at best, Ilan Pappé must be one of the world’s sloppiest historians."

Me, admittedly in full schadenfreude now: "What?!?!"

Internet: "Benny Morris. That historian who's extremely hard-core about primary source documentation, who wrote that detailed book about how and why each group of Palestinian refugees left in 1947-9. He reviewed three books about Palestine."

Me: "Holy shit. And the book by Pappé is about the Husaynis. The family that Nazi war criminal Amin al-Husseini came from, the guy who fucked absolutely everything up for both Israel and Palestine."

Internet: "That's the one. Morris wrote, 'At best, Ilan Pappe must be one of the world’s sloppiest historians; at worst, one of the most dishonest. In truth, he probably merits a place somewhere between the two.'"

Me: "Why??"

Internet: "He says, 'Here is a clear and typical example—in detail, which is where the devil resides—of Pappe’s handiwork. I take this example from The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine'....

"Blah blah blah, basically in 1947 the UN voted to partition the land into Palestine and Israel, and extremist militias started shooting at Jewish towns and people. David Ben-Gurion was the leader of the Jewish community there, and his journal describes a visit from a scientist named Aharon Katzir, telling him about an experiment codenamed "Shimshon." Morris gives us the journal entry:

...An experiment was conducted on animals. The researchers were clothed in gas masks and suit. The suit costs 20 grush, the mask about 20 grush (all must be bought immediately). The operation [or experiment] went well. No animal died, the [animals] remained dazzled [as when a car’s headlights dazzle an oncoming driver] for 24 hours. There are some 50 kilos [of the gas]. [They] were moved to Tel Aviv. The [production] equipment is being moved here. On the laboratory level, some 20 kilos can be produced per day.

"Morris says, 'This is the only accessible source that exists, to the best of my knowledge, about the meeting and the gas experiment, and it is the sole source cited by Pappe for his description of the meeting and the "Shimshon" project. But this is how Pappe gives the passage in English:

Katzir reported to Ben-Gurion: 'We are experimenting with animals. Our researchers were wearing gas masks and adequate outfit. Good results. The animals did not die (they were just blinded). We can produce 20 kilos a day of this stuff.'

"'The translation is flecked with inaccuracies, but the outrage is in Pappe’s perversion of "dazzled," or sunveru, to "blinded"—in Hebrew "blinded" would be uvru, the verb not used by Ben-Gurion—coupled with the willful omission of the qualifier '"for 24 hours."'

"'Pappe’s version of this text is driven by something other than linguistic and historiographical accuracy. Published in English for the English-speaking world, where animal-lovers are legion and deliberately blinding animals would be regarded as a barbaric act, the passage, as published by Pappe, cannot fail to provoke a strong aversion to Ben-Gurion and to Israel.

"'Such distortions, large and small, characterize almost every page of The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine. So I should add, to make the historical context perfectly clear, that no gas was ever used in the war of 1948 by any of the participants. [Or, he later notes, by either Israel or Palestine ever.] Pappe never tells the reader this.

"'Raising the subject of gas is historical irrelevance. But the paragraph will dangle in the reader’s imagination as a dark possibility, or worse, a dark reality: the Jews, gassed by the Nazis three years before, were about to gas, or were gassing, Arabs.'"

Me: "Uuuuggghhhhhhhhh. Yeah, it will."

Internet: "He does say, 'Palestinian Dynasty was a good idea.' Then he does some really detailed historian-dragging about the lack of primary sources and reliance on people's interpretations of what they say instead.

"'Almost all of Pappe’s references direct the reader to books and articles in English, Hebrew, and Arabic by other scholars, or to the memoirs of various Arab politicians, which are not the most reliable of sources. Occasionally there is a reference to an Arab or Western travelogue or genealogy, or to a diplomat’s memoir; but there is barely an allusion to documents in the relevant British, American, and Zionist/Israeli archives.

"'When referring to the content of American consular reports about Arab riots in the 1920s, for example, Pappe invariably directs the reader to an article in Hebrew by Gideon Biger—“The American Consulate in Jerusalem and the Events of 1920-1921,” in Cathedra, September 1988—and not to the documents themselves, which are easily accessible in the United States National Archive.

"'Those who falsify history routinely take the path of omission. They ignore crucial facts and important pieces of evidence while cherry-picking from the documentation to prove a case. 

"'Those who falsify history routinely take the path of omission. They ignore crucial facts and important pieces of evidence while cherry-picking from the documentation to prove a case. 

"'But Pappe is more brazen. He, too, often omits and ignores significant evidence, and he, too, alleges that a source tells us the opposite of what it in fact says, but he will also simply and straightforwardly falsify evidence.

"'Consider his handling of the Arab anti-Jewish riots of the 1920s.

"'Pappe writes of the “Nabi Musa” riots in April 1920: “The [British] Palin Commission... reported that the Jewish presence in the country was provoking the Arab population and was the cause of the riots.” He also quotes at length Musa Kazim al-Husayni, the clan’s leading notable at the time, to the effect that “it was not the [Arab] Hebronites who had started the riots but the Jews.”

"'But the (never published) [Palin Commission Report], while forthrightly anti-Zionist, thereby accurately reflecting the prevailing views in the British military government that ruled Palestine until mid-1920, flatly and strikingly charged the Arabs with responsibility for the bloodshed.

"'The team chaired by Major-General P.C. Palin wrote that “it is perfectly clear that with... few exceptions the Jews were the sufferers, and were, moreover, the victims of a peculiarly brutal and cowardly attack, the majority of the casualties being old men, women and children.” The inquiry pointed out that whereas 216 Jews were killed or injured, the British security forces and the Jews, in defending themselves or in retaliatory attacks, caused only twenty-five Arab casualties.'"

Me: "Yeah. I'm looking at that report right now and it says there had been an explosion, and then people were looting Jewish stores and beating Jews with stones, and in one case stabbing someone. Some people said that some Jews got up on the roof of a hotel and retaliated by throwing stones themselves.

"And then it literally says, 'The point as to the retaliation by Jews is of importance because it seems to have impressed the Military and led them to imagine that the Jews were to some extent responsible for provoking the rising.' That's the only thing it really says about anyone blaming the Jews.

"Except.... the very beginning gives some historical context. And it does say that when the Balfour Declaration came out, Muslims and Christians 'considered that they were to be handed over to an oppression which they hated far more than the Turk's and were aghast at the thought of this domination....

"'If this intensity of feeling proceeded merely from wounded pride of race and disappointment in political aspirations, it would be easier to criticise and rebuke: but it must be borne in mind that at the bottom of all is a deepseated fear of the Jew, both as a possible ruler and as an economic competitor. Rightly or wrongly they fear the Jew as a ruler, regarding his race as one of the most intolerant known to history....

"'The prospect of extensive Jewish immigration fills him with a panic fear, which may be exaggerated, but is none the less genuine. He sees the ablest race intellectually in the world, past-masters in all the arts of ousting competitors whether on the market, in the farm or the bureaucratic offices, backed by apparently inexhaustible funds given by their compatriots in all lands and possessed of powerful influence in the councils of the nations, prepared to enter the lists against him in every one of his normal occupations, backed by the one thing wanted to make them irresistible, the physical force of a great Imperial Power, and he feels himself overmastered and defeated before the contest is begun.'

"Wow! What a great fucking example of how 'positive' stereotypes are actually used to fuck people over! We're not antisemitic, we actually think Jews are the smartest, most powerful, richest group with tremendous global power! So positive!! Not at all being used here to justify antisemitic violence!

"Also, immigration from all over the world actually meant that different agricultural and manufacturing techniques were brought into the region, and yes, financial investments to start businesses sometimes, which meant that Arab Palestinians there had the highest per capita income in the Middle East, the highest daily wages, and started a lot of businesses of their own. But go off, I guess."

"Anyfuckingway.... it basically says that the Muslims and Christians were angry and scared, the Jews were too quick to set up the functioning government that the Brits were supposed to be there to help both sides create -- and which the Arab leaders completely refused to create for Palestine, because (1) fascists and (2) didn't want Jews nearby -- and that they were "ready prey for any form of agitation hostile to the British Government and the Jews." Then it says the movement for a United Syria was agitating them real hard, and so were the Sherifians.

"Is that what Ilan Passe, I mean Pappe, meant by the Palin Report blaming the Jews?! That when it says it's understandable the Arabs were freaking out, because antisemitism, Pappe thinks it's saying the Jews were provoking them?!"

Internet: "I don't know. I kinda tuned out after the first hour you were talking."

Me: "OGH MY GOD"

Internet: "So anyway, then Morris ALSO says, 'About the 1929 “Temple Mount” riots, which included two large-scale massacres of Jews, in Hebron and in Safed, Pappe writes: “The opposite camp, Zionist and British, was no less ruthless [than the Arabs]. In Jaffa a Jewish mob murdered seven Palestinians.”

Me: "What the ENTIRE FUCK? There was no united 'Zionist and British' camp! The Brits would barely let any Holocaust refugees in, ffs!"

Internet: "Morris says, 'Actually, there were no massacres of Arabs by Jews, though a number of Arabs were killed when Jews defended themselves or retaliated after Arab violence.

"'Pappe adds that the British “Shaw Commission,” so-called because it was chaired by Sir Walter Shaw (a former chief justice of the Straits Settlements), which investigated the riots, “upheld the basic Arab claim that Jewish provocations had caused the violent outbreak. ‘The principal cause... was twelve years of pro-Zionist [British] policy.’”

"'It is unclear what Pappe is quoting from. I did not find this sentence in the commission’s report. Pappe’s bibliography refers, under “Primary Sources,” simply to “The Shaw Commission.” The report? The deliberations? Memoranda by or about? Who can tell?

"'The footnote attached to the quote, presumably to give its source, says, simply, “Ibid.”

"'The one before it says, “Ibid., p. 103.”

"'The one before that says, “The Shaw Commission, session 46, p. 92.”

"'But the quoted passage does not appear on page 103 of the report.

"In the text of Palestinian Dynasty, Pappe states that “Shaw wrote [this] after leaving the country [Palestine].” But if it is not in the report, where did Shaw “write” it?'"

Me: "I'M ON IT. [rapid-fire googling] OMG. This is.... Not the first time. In 'The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine,' he reported that in a 1937 letter to his son, David Ben-Gurion declared: 'The Arabs will have to go, but one needs an opportune moment for making it happen, such as war.'

"It's not in the source he gave. It's not in any of the three different sources he's given for it.

"He apparently has never responded to any requests for an explanation, either from the journal he published in, or from other historians. But it says he did "obliquely [acknowledge] the controversy in an article in Electronic Intifada, in which he portrayed himself as the victim of intimidation at the hands of “Zionist hooligans.”'

"This is absolutely fucking wild. THEN it says the chair of the Ethics Committee where he was teaching eventually said that the second part of the quote ('but one needs,' etc) was a (combined?) paraphrase of a diary entry and a speech Ben-Gurion gave, and that the first half is 'based on' a letter to his son.

"And it's so convincing! The chair says, 'Shabtai Teveth[,] Ben Gurion’s biographer, Benny Morris and the historian Nur Maslaha have all quoted this letter. In fact their translation was stronger than the quotation from Professor Pappé: ‘We must expel the Arabs and take their place.’ Professor Pappé has documentary evidence of these quotations and the source will ensure that this is correctly cited in any future editions of the publication or related studies.'

"And IT'S NOT EVEN TRUE?!

"Ben-Gurion's actual diary entry (not a letter) says the opposite.

“'We do not want and do not need to expel Arabs and take their places.... All our aspiration is built on the assumption – proven throughout all our activity – that there is enough room in the country for ourselves and the Arabs.'

"Benny Morris misquoted it as "We must expel the Arabs and take their places" in the English version of his 1987 book The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem, although it was correct in the Hebrew version. He corrected himself in the 2001 book Righteous Victims.

"Teveth also misquoted it in the English version of his 1985 book Ben-Gurion and the Palestinian Arabs, but again, had it correct in the Hebrew edition.

"And both Morris and Teveth explicitly point out the rest of the entry. The part about all their aspiration being built on the assumption and experience that there was enough room in the country for everyone.

"Historian Efraim Karsh’s 1997 book Fabricating Israeli History pointed out and corrected their mistakes.

"This is apparently a very well-known issue among historians of Israel and Palestine. It was a big deal in 2003, when an evangelist Christian publisher put out a book FULL of disinformation, which not only used the same quote as Pappe does, but also could not give a real source for it.

"But Pappe STILL USED THE MISQUOTE AND DOUBLED DOWN ON IT EVERY SINGLE TIME."

Internet: "Are you done? I know all this already."

Me: "Also, there are literally only two places where the phrase 'twelve years of pro-Zionist policy' shows up online, and they're both about Pappe making quotes up.

"NOW I'm done."

Benny Morris wasn't, though. The review continues at the link below. And the next part starts, "To the deliberate slanting of history Pappe adds a profound ignorance of basic facts. Together these sins and deficiencies render his “histories” worthless as representations of the past, though they are important as documents in the current political and historiographic disputations about the Arab-Israeli conflict. Pappe’s grasp of the facts of World War I, for example, is weak in the extreme."

[news4dzhozhar]

“The Worst of What Humanity Is Capable Of”: Pediatrician on What She Saw in Gaza

You can watch/listen to her full, disturbing interview at the link above.

[runalongprincevaliant]

Israhell needs to be held accountable for their war crimes.

[sscarletvenus]

i do not pity israel. never have, and never will.

each night that gaza experiences is deadlier than the last, as idf soldiers record propaganda tiktoks, make rave parties and grwms and fit checks, gloat over having food and water, and film themselves deriving sadistic pleasure from torturing their hostages and victims and desecrating the dead.

Palestinians have to display their martyred before the camera for you to believe the atrocities that the zionist entity has subjected them to. they cannot even mourn in private. the apartheid entity murders them in cold blood, and you deliver the killing blow by doubting them.

babies whose families have been killed will never get to know their own name.

i can't reshare a tenth of the videos and photos that cross my timeline. i have seen more dead children in the past month than i have known death my entire life.

israeli settlers burn olive trees, bomb bakeries and fishing boats, shower white phosphorus and earthquake bombs on the captive civilians of gaza. you already know about the disastrous effects of white phosphorus, but earthquake bombs were last used during ww2 to wipe out entire cities.

how holy is the land that seeks to be built over the mass graves of thousands of children? is it holier than the miracle of a child being born in this hypocritical world?

all 11 universities in gaza have been bombed. academics should be agitating right now, especially those who call themselves "decolonial thinkers." destruction of universities is a sinisterly deliberate act to sabotage the Palestinians who will survive this great catastrophe.

the act of cleansing your hands before prayer is extremely important to muslims. no part of us can remotely comprehend the grief of the mother who refused to wash her hands from the blood of her children after losing them in a zionist airstrike over gaza. "I swear I won't wash them, I won't wash my hands, how else am I supposed to sleep near my kids."

it is only both moral and right when one side defends itself. the other side are the price of war, no better than insects and cattle and sheep left to die within the four walls of the slaughterhouse.

this situation should not be up for debate, but let me finish with one final thing : do your research about Palestine. HOWEVER. you do not need a degree in middle east studies to object to an ongoing genocide. if someone outwits you in a debate about historical details and every nuance of a subject, you were and will remain entirely correct in objecting to a genocide.

may those martyred rest in peace and be reunited again with their loved ones in heaven's eternal vastness.

DO NOT STOP TALKING ABOUT PALESTINE.

glory to Palestinian resistance. from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free.

[chewwytwee]

Okay wow the US state department really stomping down hard on the fear mongering about ‘foreign terrorists’ in the run up to pride month. If you haven’t seen it yet, the US state department issued a travel advisory for queer Americans abroad because of ‘terrorrists’ who might ‘hijack’ pride. It’s completely absurd and about as bad as Operation Pridefall

There’s no (abnormal) increase in risk for queer people because its pride month, they’re using homophobic violence as a wedge to keep people reluctant or uncertain about the occupation and genocide of Palestine. Don’t let it fool you, you are not immune to propaganda

[icyfox62]

You know it wild. This strike for Palestine has made me realize how little most of us know about what’s going on. I’ve seen so many posts containing disinformation or at least unverified information using language a lot of us don’t understand. This whole time I’ve been using the word “Zionists” to describe the people committing the genocide against the people of Gaza and the West Bank. I, and many others, fell for the same propaganda that gripped the US following 9/11: Every person from [insert place] is a [insert different religion/view point that one person committing terrible acts shared] and therefore bad.

There are left and right wings of Zionism and what we’re seeing now is the actions of a right wing controlled Zionist point of view. What we see now is what happens when religion/people claiming to be religious are allowed to control the laws of the land. This is no different from right wing leaders in Texas passing laws that result in the harm and/or death of trans people, women, pregnant women, and anyone on their hate list disguised behind religion.

[bugpill]

If I see any more misinformation about Kamala Harris to dissuade people from voting I will explode.

1. She did a lot of work as a prosecutor to dismantle the system. When she was DA in San Francisco she was labeled as being “soft on crime” which she in turn claimed was “smart on crime”. Harris made a program called Back on Track so that low-level nonviolent drug offenders could enroll in school rather than doing jail time. She has believe and continues to believe that supporting people prevents crime far better than criminalizing people.

Yes, she put people behind bars. I know she called herself the “Top Cop” and I fucking hate that. However, the number of people who served time in jail was significantly reduced due to her program. She’s not a saint, but she tried to reduce harm as much as she could in her position. Since then, she’s called for even more action in terms of legalizing marijuana and I believe recently fully endorsed it publicly.

2. She is not transphobic. Harris backed the state of California when it tried to deny gender-affirmation surgery to a trans prisoner, but as attorney general, she could not deny the state’s Department of Corrections as a client of hers. Essentially, she had no say in the denial of surgery herself, as she had to represent the department’s interests over her own. Once she realized what they were doing, Harris actually worked behind the scenes to get that very policy changed so that any inmate who needs that care could get it. Additionally, she has lead efforts to put an end to gay and transgender “panic” defenses in criminal trials.

3. Kamala Harris is Black. For some reason, people like to say that she isn’t, and that she’s Indian and pretending to be black… for what reason? Depends on who’s telling the lie to begin with. Kamala Harris is Black and South Asian. Her father, Donald Harris, is a Black man who was born in Jamaica. Her mother, Shyamala Gopalan, was born in India. Speculating about her race with so much evidence towards the contrary is so wrong. If anyone tells you shit about this, just send them her whitehouse.gov biography.

4. Harris (reportedly) has different opinions than Biden on Palestine. Whether or not she makes a clear stance against Israel, I don’t know. That hasn’t happened yet, but I’ll remain hopeful until further notice. She reportedly tried to push Biden towards “a policy on Gaza that was both more humane and in alignment with international law” but wasn’t listened to. The only reason why this is one of my points is that I’ve seen a lot of people stating that she is totally behind every decision and stance Biden made as president, which isn’t necessarily true. I don’t want to give her credit for being pro-Palestine if she isn’t, just to be clear. That is not what I’m trying to do here.

I desperately want her to stand for a free Palestine. I cannot make the promise that this will happen. All I can hope for is that her policy will be less harmful than Trump’s- who wants Israel to “finish the job” and promises to “throw (pro-Palestinian protestors) out of the country”.

Conclusion: the fact of the matter is that people make shit up all of the time. Sometimes it’s propaganda they accidentally absorb, sometimes it’s deliberate misinformation. People often take rumors as facts, and we need to be more vigilant about it. What I know is that some people will do anything for you to not vote tor Kamala Harris, when in reality she’s our only hope here.

Is Harris my favorite person ever? Absolutely not. Does she share my exact views and opinions? Nope. Would I rather vote for someone who more aligns with my personal views? Yes.

Is voting for Harris the only way to stop Donald Trump and Project 2025? Yes.

Disclaimer for the blog: To be 100% transparent, this is only my (Fanya’s) opinions. Although this is a shared blog, I cannot claim that my stance and my voice speaks for everybody involved in this blog. Some members are not American. Some may have different takes. All I know is that all of us are anti-Trump. Don’t go after my friends if you have beef with what I’m saying. I’m trying my best here.

[brownpaperhag]

if any non-palestinians, especially in ‘the west,’ especially in positions of bodily safety, especially especially whites, are still feeling hopeless and lost about the genocide, may i offer, as gently as possible... get over it. your body is safe. you have been told over and over and over exactly what you can do to help, in exhaustive detail according to your specific social and political position. find out what you should do and do it if you can. if you can’t, that’s on you. find something you can do. stop asking palestinians to tell you what to do; take what is already given. you can find the instructions that have already been so explicitly left for you. you are an adult. your job is to keep moving. you are not allowed to be hopeless — that is a betrayal of everything the palestinian community and its supporters stand for. keep moving. don’t let anyone tell you that anti-zionist means anti-semite. don’t let anti-zionists around you become anti-semites. don’t let islamophobia stand. know that propaganda works and it’s working on you right now. keep moving. you are an adult. your life is yours to care for — that means finding the support you need, which also means knowing the boundaries and needs of those supporting you. you aren’t special. you aren’t alone. keep moving. you are not a hero. you are safe. you have agency. there is nothing you can do that can’t be done by someone else while you recharge. you are part of a collective; no one is looking directly at you. do what you can, and if you can do nothing, make your peace with that. palestine has no time for your shame or your guilt. feel these feelings when they come to you and then move through them.

[euphorial-docx]

people need to realize that what’s going on with palestine and israel isn’t about anyone being jewish.

there are jewish palestinians, muslim palestinians, christian palestinians being trapped in what is essentially an open air prison for children and the elderly with no food, water, or electricity just because they’re palestinian.

this is about colonization, and unfortunately so many people are falling for the blatant propaganda being turned out by an apartheid government (israel).

the only solution to stop all this violence is to give palestine their land back. that is the solution.

[fairuzfan]

Anyways if you're Palestinian and need to see other Palestinians speaking to feel sane again, I recommend checking out thepalestinedirectory.carrd.co for a directory of free to access links for and about Palestine by Palestinians — a couple of friends of mine started it and I would really appreciate it if you could share Palestinian led sources when discussing Palestinian history, culture, and politics. Please stop sharing zionist propaganda and lending them credence by amplifying their words.

[sissa-arrows]

Seeing articles and videos about “Israel” arming settlers reminds me of the stories my great grandpa told me about May 8th 1945. How France armed the settlers so they would help the colonial authorities kill Algerians. 45000 Algerians were killed in just a couple days and many more were jailed without proper trial.

The general who organized the massacre said to France “I got you 10 years of peace. But things need to change in Algeria, they failed only because the protests were not simultaneous. The calm is back only in surface, the gap between the two communities deepened. You cannot keep on using violence if you want to keep Algeria and your methods need to change.”

He was right (still a peace of shit cause dude organized the massacre of 45000 Algerians). France didn’t listen to him and 9 years and a half later on November 1st 1954 the Algerian war of liberation started with simultaneous attacks all over the North of Algeria. It started with 1000 men only and 8 years later Algeria was free of French colonial rule.

That’s why I’m convinced that Palestine will be free because Israel is repeating the same mistakes France did. My grandpa keeps telling me that he trust Palestinians to take back their land because that’s the natural order of things and because “Israel” reminds him so much of France. The methods, the lies, the propaganda. And just like Algerian women managed to show to the world what was truly happening and switched the public opinion, Palestinian journalists are showing to the world what’s happening. It cannot be ignored.

Pro Israel aholes reached the point where they have to disguise their protests as protest against antisemitism in order to gather any form of support from the public. Western medias already lost all credibility to the point where they are backtracking a bit. Politicians are backtracking slowly too. Because they are realizing that if they keep up the unconditional support they will fall with Israel (tbh I think they are all falling with Israel either way because whenever the Global South rise the West fall cause the West is unable to thrive without looting and oppressing the Global South.).

Palestine will be free in our lifetime Inch’Allah and we will all share pictures and videos of the liberation. Palestinians are going to rebuild their country and thrive. If Algeria kicked out colonizers after 132 years Palestine can do it because it’s a country of braves. Because nobody can stop a people who fight for liberation when the people are united.

[lizardsfromspace]

I'm not actually sure what Very Online types think should happen in Palestine and I don't think they're sure either bc what is this

We shouldn't praise a teenager resisting the draft too hard bc. Bc...? I struggle to even parse what's being said here. It's guff about how "the bar is really this low" and then a reminder of how "we are seeing what is happening to Palestinians...and this is what people are uplifting?" but like. What does that mean though

They want Israeli oppression of Palestine to cease, but we can't be happy that a teenager refused to join in that oppression? So what should we do. Should we not encourage teens to resist the draft in a country with mandatory military service, heavy propaganda, and that has organized society to heavily stigmatize resisting military service? No, genuinely, what do they want people to do? We need the occupation to end, but also can't support anyone who's fighting for that to happen, since uhhh is the bar really this low??? Would it have been better if he joined the IDF

(do people not know Israel has mandatory military service? I've seen people agreeing with this by saying "refusing to join is the bare minimum, deciding to enlist is horrific". But they're not enlisting, it's conscription. Do they think this person enlisted then withdrew or something...? And why would that not be worth celebrating???)

The answer is ofc this person hasn't really thought about any of this. It's just raging id and an idea that engaging in online discourse is what's truly helpful. It's like the people who treated Hozier as if he was some pro-genocide goon for saying there needs to be "peace" in a statement far more condemnatory than most, since...I still don't know. "How can you talk about peace when one side's oppressing the other?" Well ending that is what peace is, definitionally speaking. How else will it end but with a treaty

The scenario here seems to be, we need the genocide and occupation to end. But also we can't support any Israelis trying to stop it, and should be sus of activism in general. Also we can't talk about "peace" in any way. We just need to post about how it should happen

Anyway when people pointed this out they instantly locked replies and said the "kumbaya libs found it 💔"

It reminds me of those people who swarm any story about Russian anti-war activists by saying it doesn't matter unless they personally assassinate Putin. Like cool. I guess people in the oppressor state should just do nothing to oppose it then if they can't fix anything. Screaming at someone who refuses to join the military that it's actually very problematic that they aren't joining in the oppression, when there's so much oppression to oppose instead of praising them for refusing to join the oppression

[news4dzhozhar]

[jewelleria]

I don’t usually talk about politics on here, if ever. But it’s been almost six months since the conflict in the Middle East flared up again, and I’m finally ready to start. Here are some of my thoughts.

I say ‘flared up’ because this has happened before and it’ll happen again. Because, even though what's currently going on is absolutely unprecedented, those of us who live in this part of the world are used to it. Let that sink in: we are used to this. And we shouldn’t have to be. 

But I use that term for another reason: I don't want to accidentally call it the wrong thing lest I come under fire for being a genocidal maniac or a terrorist or a propaganda machine, etc., etc.—so let’s just call it ‘the war’ or ‘the conflict.’ Because that’s what it is. Doesn’t matter which side you’re on, who you love, or who you hate. 

This post will, in all likelihood, sit in my drafts forever. If it does get posted, it certainly won’t be on my main, because I'm scared of being harassed (spoiler: she posted it on her main). I hate admitting that, but honestly? I’m fucking terrified. 

I also feel like in order for anything I say on here (i.e. the hellscape of the internet) to be taken seriously, I have to somehow prove that a) I’m “educated” enough to talk about the conflict, and b) that my opinion lines up with what has been deemed the correct one. So, tedious and unnecessary though it is, I will tell you about my experience, because I have a feeling most of the people reading this post are not nearly as close to what’s happening as I am.

How do I explain where I live without actually explaining where I live? How do I say “I live in the Red Zone of international conflicts” without saying what I actually think? How do I convey the fear that grips me when I try to decide between saying “I live in Palestine” and “I live in Israel”? I don't really know. But I do know that names are important. I also know that, due to the various clickbaity monikers ascribed to the conflict, it would probably just be easier to point to a map. 

I haven't always lived in the Middle East. I've lived in various places along America’s east coast, and traveled all over the world. But in short, I now live somewhere inside the crudely-drawn purple circle. 

If you know anything about these borders you probably blanched a bit in sympathy, or maybe condolence. But in truth, it’s a shockingly normal existence. I don't feel like I've lived through the shifting of international relations or a war or anything. I just kind of feel like I did when COVID hit, that dull sameness as I wondered if this would be the only world-altering event to shape my life, or if there would be more. 

I've been told that, in order for my brain to process all the horrific details of the past six months, there needs to be some element of cognitive dissonance—that falling into a sort of dissociative mindset is the only way to not go insane under the weight of it all. I think in some ways that’s true. I have been terrifyingly close to bus stop shootings when my commute wasn’t over; I have felt my apartment building shake with the reverberations of a missile strike; I have spent hours in underground shelters waiting for air raid sirens to stop. 

But. I have also gone grocery shopping, and skipped class, and stayed up too late watching TV, and fed the cats on the street corner, and cried over a boy, and got myself AirPods just because, and taken out the trash, and done laundry on a delicate cycle, and bought overpriced lattes one too many days a week. I have looked at pretty things and taken out my phone because, despite it all, I still think that life is too short not to freeze the small moments. 

So I'd say, all things considered, I live an incredibly privileged life—compared, of course, to those suffering in Gaza—one filled with sunsets and over-sweetened knafeh and every different color of sand. One that allows me to throw myself into a fandom-induced hyperfixation (or, alternatively, escape method) as I sit on the couch and crack open my laptop to write the next chapter of the fic I'm working on. 

But there are bits of not-normalness that wheedle their way through the cracks. I pretend these moments are avoidable, even if they’re not. 

They look like this: reading the news and seeing another idiotic, careless choice on Netanyahu’s part and groaning into my morning coffee. Watching Palestinian and Jewish children’s needless suffering posted on Instagram reels and feeling helpless. Opening my Tumblr DMs to find a message telling me to exterminate myself for reblogging a post that only seems like it’s about the war if you squint and tilt your head sideways. 

These moments look like all the tiny ways I am reminded that I'm living in a post-October seventh world, where hearing a car backfire makes me jump out of my skin and the sound of a suitcase on pavement makes me look up at the sky and search for the war planes. They look like the heavy grief that is, and also isn’t, mine. 

Here's the thing, though. I know you’re wondering when the ball will drop and my true opinion will be revealed. I know you’re waiting for me to reveal what demographic I'm a part of so that you, dear reader, can neatly slap a label on my head and sort me into some oversimplified category that lets you continue to think you understand this war. 

No one wants to sit and ruminate on the difficult questions, the ones that make you wonder if maybe you’ve been tinkered with by the propaganda machine, if you might need to go back on what you’ve said or change your mind. We all strive for our perception of complicated issues to be a comfortable one.

But I know that no matter what I do, there will always be assumptions. So, while I shudder to reveal this information online, I think that maybe my most significant contribution to this meta-discussion spanning every facet of the internet is this: 

I am a Jew. 

Or, alternatively, I am: Jewish, יהודית, يَهُودِيٌّ, etc. Point is, I come from Jews. And, like any given person, I am a product of generation after generation of love. 

I'm not going to take time to explain my heritage to you, or to prove that before all the expulsions and pogroms, there was an origin point. If you don’t believe that, perhaps it’s less of a factual problem and more of an ‘I don’t give weight to the beliefs of indigenous people’ problem. But, in case you want to spend time uselessly refuting this tiny point in a larger argument, you can inspect the photos below (it’s just a small chunk of my DNA test results). Alternatively, you can remember that interrogating someone in an attempt to make their indigeneity match your arbitrary criteria is generally not seen as good manners. 

Now, let’s go back to thathateful message (read: poorly disguised death threat) I received in my Tumblr DMs. I think it was like two or three weeks ago. I had recently gained a new follower whose blog’s primary focus was the fandom I contribute to, so I followed them back. I saw in my notes that they were going through my posts and liking them—as one does when gaining a new mutual. Yippee! 

Then they sent me this: 

I tried to explain that hate speech is not a way to go about participating in political discourse, but the person had already blocked me immediately after sending that message. Then, assured by the fact that I surely would never see them complaining about me on their blog (because, as I said, they blocked me), they posted a shouting rant accusing me of sympathizing with colonizing settlers and declaring me a “racist Zionist fuck.” Oh, the wonders of incognito tabs.

Where this person drew these conclusions after reading my (reblogged) post about antisemitism…. I'm not actually sure. But I greatly sympathize with them, and hope that they weren’t too personally offended by my desire to not die. 

For a while I contemplated this experience in my righteous anger, and tried to figure out a way to message this person. I wanted to explain that a) seeing a post about being Jewish and choosing to harass the creator about Israel is literally the definition of antisemitism and b) that sending a hateful DM and refusing to be held accountable is just childish and immature. But I gave up soon after—because, honestly, I knew it wasn’t worth my effort or energy. And I knew that I wouldn't be able to change their mind. 

But I still remember staring at that rather unfortunate meme, accompanied by an all-caps message demanding for me to Free Palestine, and thinking: the post didn’t even have any buzzwords. I remember the swoop of dread and guilt and fear. I remember wondering why this kind of antisemitism felt worse, in that moment, than the kind that leaves bodies in its wake. 

I remember thinking, I don’t have the power to free anyone.

I remember thinking, I’m so fucking tired. 

And before you tell me that this conflict isn’t about religion—let me ask you some questions. Why is it that Israel is even called Israel? (Here’s why.) Why do Jews even want it? (Here’s why.) But also, if you actually read the charters of Islamist terrorist organizations like ISIS, Hamas, and Hezbollah (among others), they equate the modern state of Israel with the Jewish people, and they use the two entities interchangeably. So of course this conflict is religious. It’s never been anything but that.

But I do wonder, when faced with those who deny this fact: how do I prove, through an endless slew of what-about-isms and victim blaming, that I too am hurting? How do I show that empathy is dialectical, that I can care deeply for Palestinians and Gazans while also grieving my own people? 

There's this thing that humans do, when we’re frustrated about politics and need to howl our opinions about it into the void until we feel better. We find like-minded souls, usually our friends and neighbors, and fret about the state of the world to each other until we’ve gone around in a satisfactory amount of circles. But these conversations never truly accomplish anything. They’re just a substitute, a stand-in catharsis, for what we really wish we could do: find someone who embodies the spirit of every Jew-hating internet troll, every ignorant justifier of terrorism, and scream ourselves hoarse at them until we change their mind.

But, of course, minds cannot be changed when they are determined to live in a state of irrational dislike. In Judaism, this way of thinking has a name: שנאת חינם (sinat hinam), or baseless hatred. It's a parasite with no definite cure, and it makes people bend over backwards to justify things like the massacre on October seventh, simply because the blame always needs to be placed on the Jews. 

So when a Jew is faced with this unsolvable problem, there is only one response to be had, only one feeling to be felt: anger. And we are angry. Carrying around rage with nowhere to put it is exhausting. It's like a weight at the base of our neck that pushes down on our spine, bending it until we will inevitably snap under the pressure. I’m still waiting to break, even now.

I wish I could explain to someone who needs to hear it that terrorism against Israelis happens every single day here, and that we are never more than one degree of separation away from the brutal slaughter of a friend, lover, parent, sibling. I wish it would be enough to say that the majority of Israelis (which includes Arab-Israeli citizens who have the exact same rights as Jewish-Israelis) wish for peace every day without ever having seen what it looks like. 

I wish I could show the world that Israel was founded as a socialist state, that it was built on communal values and born from a cluster of kibbutzim (small farming communities based on collective responsibility), and that what it is now isn’t what its people stand for. 

I wish the world could open their eyes to what we Israelis have seen since the beginning: that Hamas is the enemy, Hamas is the one starving Palestinians and denying them aid, Hamas is the one who keeps rejecting ceasefire terms and denying their citizens basic human rights. Hamas is the governing body of Gaza, not Israel. Hamas is responsible for the wellbeing of the Palestinian people. And Hamas are the ones who are more determined to murder Jews—over and over and over again, in the most animalistic ways possible—than to look inwards and see the suffering they’ve inflicted on their own people. I wish it was easier to see that.

But the wishing, the asking how can people be so blind, is never enough. I can never just say, I promise I don't want war. 

When I bear witness to this baseless hatred, I think of the victims of October seventh. I think of the women and girls who were raped and then murdered, forever unable to tell their stories. I think of the hostages, trapped underneath Gaza in dark tunnels, wondering if anyone will come for them. I think of Ori Ansbacher, of Ezra Schwartz, of Eyal, Gilad, and Naftali, of Lucy, Rina, and Maia Dee, of the Paley boys, of Ari Fuld and of Nachshon Wachsman. I think of all the innocent blood spilled because of terror-fueled hatred and the virus of antisemitism. I think of all the thousands of people who were brutally murdered in Israel, Jews and Muslims and Christians and humans, who will never see peace.

My ties to this land are knotted a thousand times over. Even when I leave, a part of me is left behind, waiting for me to claim it when I return. But when I see the grit it takes to live through this pain, when I see the suffering that paints the world the color of blood, I look to the heavens and I wonder why. 

I ask God: is it worth all this? He doesn't answer. So I am the one, in the end, to answer my own question. I say, it has to be. 

Feel free to send any genuine, respectful, and clarifying questions you may have to my inbox!

EDIT: just coming on here to say that I'm really touched & grateful for the love on this post. When I wrote it, I felt hopeless; I logged off of Tumblr for Shabbat, dreading the moment I would turn off my phone to find more hate in my inbox. Granted, I did find some, and responding to it was exhausting, but it wasn’t all hate. I read every kind reblog and comment, and the love was so much louder. Thank you, thank you, thank you. 🤍

Source Reading

The Whispered in Gaza Project by The Center for Peace Communications

Why Jews Cannot Stop Shaking Right Now by Dara Horn

Hamas Kidnapped My Father for Refusing to Be Their Puppet by Ala Mohammed Mushtaha

I Hope Someone Somewhere Is Being Kind to My Boy by Rachel Goldberg

The Struggle for Black Freedom Has Nothing to Do with Israel by Coleman Hughes

Israel Can Defend Itself and Uphold Its Values by The New York Times Editorial Board

There Is a Jewish Hope for Palestinian Liberation. It Must Survive by Peter Beinart

The Long Wait of the Hostages’ Families by Ruth Margalit

“By Any Means Necessary”: Hamas, Iran, and the Left by Armin Navabi

When People Tell You Who They Are, Believe Them by Bari Weiss

Hunger in Gaza: Blame Hamas, Not Israel by Yvette Miller

Benjamin Netanyahu Is Israel’s Worst Prime Minister Ever by Anshel Pfeffer

What Palestinians Really Think of Hamas by Amaney A. Jamal and Michael Robbins

The Decolonization Narrative Is Dangerous and False by Simon Sebag Montefiore

Understanding Hamas’s Genocidal Ideology by Bruce Hoffman

The Wisdom of Hamas by Matti Friedman

How the UN Discriminates Against Israel by Dina Rovner

This Muslim Israeli Woman Is the Future of the Middle East by The Free Press

Why Are Feminists Silent on Rape and Murder? by Bari Weiss