#palestinians are native to the land as well but like

[paopuofhearts]

.

[hero-israel]

This is pseudoscience where it isn’t actively anti-science.

The pines planted in Israel are Aleppo pines, which are indigenous and have been recorded by observers for literally millennia.  Far from “devastating” native oaks and carobs and whatever, Israel planted tons of those varieties too.  And there can be no discussion of the well-being of Israeli forests without noting that Palestinian militants are highly proficient at arson and have practically made mountainous tire-fires their trademark.

As for the idea that the Zionists were “trying to create European-style forests” - the implication that the local environment was “normal” before they “changed” it is entirely a social construct reeking of unexamined privilege.  The Roman Empire massively deforested Israel along with the rest of the Mediterranean.  Our popular concept of the Middle East as a land of desert and scrubland is  artificial, but comes naturally to people who think the world began in like 1700.  

The Palestinian mountain gazelle is indeed endangered in Israel, and some of their populations are jeopardized by habitat and genetic fragmentation caused by the West Bank barriers.  However, the largest and most stable population of the species is found in the Golan Heights, where they roam freely without such barriers and have enjoyed a significant rebound in numbers now that they are no longer subject to hunting from Syria.  More importantly, the Palestinian mountain gazelle has already been wiped out in Egypt, and also in Syria and Jordan - perhaps some invisible Mossad agents went on safari?  The species was on the brink of extinction in Turkey, until it was quite accidentally saved when the Turkish military set up a no-man’s-land on the border with Syria in response to its civil war.    

It’s also worth noting that the first post in that Twitter thread (not screencapped onto the Tumblr post, hmm...) was Heron calling for BDS.  When Israel really is the only country in that region where forest cover is growing and where the mountain gazelles have any chance at survival, uh, why should we overthrow the government, again?  That would help the environment how, precisely?  The Kai Herons of the world would call that “greenwashing,” because they don’t actually give a shit about the environment, they just misappropriate journal-jargon to mask how ridiculous and unprincipled their accusations are.   

Last and least, the concept that “Palestinian liberation is a climate issue” is just a perfect crystallization, French waiter palm-kiss, of how lefty activists try to run in every direction at once and get nowhere.  Climate protection has failed because it requires the entire world to unfuck foundational problems in our economic, technological, and political lives - but Palestinian liberation is still a matter of a signature and a handshake, two parties looking at made-up lines on a very small map.  For white European activists to insist that Palestinians may only make progress if we first make progress on climate change just shows how they only see Palestinians as tools and symbols and not as people.  

CODA:

This is a case of me being ABSOLUTELY fucking petty enough to reconstruct and restart a post after someone blocked me and prevented reblogs of the original.

For more on the pseudoscience and anti-environmentalism of Palestine activists see lots of links here. For more on the actual environmental history and diversity of the region, see the tags.

[jewishvitya]

I remembered this essay from years ago when I was unlearning what I knew of Israel and zionism and I couldn't find it again, and now I see it in a Shaun video, with the source.

Ze'ev Jabotinsky, "The Iron Wall." I downloaded it from the Jabotinsky Institute.

These are the titles he gave this essay:

I said that Zionist leaders explicitly talked about Zionism as a colonialist movement. This is an example of what I was talking about.

Some quotes:

There can be no voluntary agreement between ourselves and the Palestine Arabs. Not now, nor in the prospective future. I say this with such conviction, not because I want to hurt the moderate Zionists. I do not believe that they will be hurt. Except for those who were born blind, they realised long ago that it is utterly impossible to obtain the voluntary consent of the Palestine Arabs for converting "Palestine" from an Arab country into a country with a Jewish majority.

My readers have a general idea of the history of colonisation in other countries. I suggest that they consider all the precedents with which they are acquainted, and see whether there is one solitary instance of any colonisation being carried on with the consent of the native population. There is no such precedent.

He's saying openly: no land was colonized with the consent of its indigenous population. So we have to do it without that consent.

Every native population in the world resists colonists as long as it has the slightest hope of being able to rid itself of the danger of being colonised.

That is what the Arabs in Palestine are doing, and what they will persist in doing as long as there remains a solitary spark of hope that they will be able to prevent the transformation of "Palestine" into the "Land of Israel."

He said that any zionist who depends on the Arab population accepting a Jewish state on their lands, might as well withdraw from zionism because that's impossible.

Zionist colonisation must either stop, or else proceed regardless of the native population. Which means that it can proceed and develop only under the protection of a power that is independent of the native population – behind an iron wall, which the native population cannot breach.

And then he says that this Iron Wall is the British Mandate and the Balfour Declaration - they're the power that stops Palestinians from resisting us.

He says that despite this, zionism is moral and just, so justice must be done, zionism must move forward. He just wants to be honest about what it takes. He wants to discourage talks of an agreement to avoid signaling to the British that they must try to reach one between us and Palestinians. Just stop them from fighting us, we'll colonize the place.

Zionism was openly colonialist until this language was no longer politically useful.

Editing because I was kinda shocked by the response this got, in several moments. When the slavery of US founders was brought up to dismiss this whole thing. When First Nations reservations were brought up on the same list as the United States as equivalent to Israel, because I said I oppose the existence of a country that prioritizes one ethnic group at the expense of others, and I support democracy that protects everyone equally.

But another thing that's still nagging at me is the idea that this whole essay can be dismissed based on semantic arguments, like sure this uses the word colonialism, but is it actually the colonialism that we talk about and oppose? And what if this word is only used to appeal to the British for support?

This isn't the the first time that prominent zionist thinkers talk about zionism as a colonialist movement. I saw it in old publications, things like magazines, I'd be posting them too if I found them again. I did my own deconstructing years ago, I don't remember where I found all my sources.

I do remember that they talked about the two concepts together - the idea that we're here to colonize, and that we're here to come home. So nowadays there's the arguement that people can't colonize their own homeland, but to them there was no contradiction. I saw it again looking at Herzl's diary last night.

I say I define colonialism through actions and tactics, through the harm that's done to the victims of colonization. Because if we knowingly repeated the actions of colonizers and used the help of an imperial force to conquer a land, having a historic connection to it shouldn't absolve us.

Jabotinsky didn't write to the British in this essay. He wrote to other zionists who wanted to aim for something more collaborative with Palestinian Arabs. And it's true that word choice can mean different things in the context of the time, but there's a reason I chose those quotes. What is he actually saying in this essay?

Consider colonization throughout history - the native population never agreed, so we must do the as colonizers did in the past.

Palestinians will never agree to a Jewish state - so we must do it by force. We should use an imperial force as an "iron wall" to prevent them from resisting. Stop talking about an agreement because then the British will try to reach one instead of holding them back and letting us do our thing.

He's comparing the zionist movement to other efforts of colonization, to talk about emulating them.

This isn't a game of semantics. I'm not just bringing this up just because he used the words.

What he's describing - conquest by force, preventing a Palestinian state, forcibly creating a Jewish majority - is what happened. And it's still what's happening.

This is the branch of zionism that went into practice and founded Israel.

[tamamita]

Can I ask why people are pretending Jewish people aren’t native to the Levant? “Genocide is unforgivable, apartheid ethnostates shouldn’t exist, and you don’t get to kick people out of their homes, even if their distant ancestors kicked your distant ancestors out of their homes” is a fine statement on its own, and ignoring the truth or lying about it weakens the pro-Palestine argument. Like it or not, it’s not a case where a native population is being oppressed by foreigners- Jewish people are the First Nations of the area. This doesn’t mean even slightly that anything Israel is doing is acceptable, which is why I don’t understand why more people trying to liberate Palestine try and frame it as “foreigners oppressing natives”.

Despite the fact that it's been 2000 years since then, Jewish people have managed to form their own identity, culture and heritage in many other parts of their world which many people take great pride in, and subsequently renounced Zionism, focusing on the idea of Doikiyat (to strenghten Jewish community wherever they live). The Arabs and Jewish people have lived in the Holy Land for 1400 years and intermingled, so a bunch of people from Europe and America can't just suddenly have the right to return and evict people from their home and commit one of the greatest displacement of people in modern history by the right of some Whites, who didn't want the Jewish people in their lands. Second, the idea of a Jewish state is built on the notion of Zionism, which is a white supremarcist and imperialist ideology that calls for the degredation and forceful eviction of the Arabs for the settlement of the Jewish people. Palestinians aren't even calling for the expulsion of Israelis. What they want is that the Settler colonial state is dismantled and that their people are allowed to return as well with equal rights that the Israelis get to enjoy, but there will be no ethnostate. Zionism is a fascist ideology and no matter how much you wanna argue in bad or good faith, it is inhuman and the occupation is a form of genocide. Decolonization will be violent, and much of the Israelis will voluntarily leave, since they don't see Palestinians as humans, as was the case with the Pied-noirs after the Algerians took back their lands.

Second, Jewish people are not the first nation there, historically and biblically speaking.

[heywhatsupfolks]

to be clear: what is your stance on i/p conflict

my stance is this:

Both ethnic palestinians and jews have the right to live in the land of Israel as its native people. Jews have lived in Israel for over 3,000 years, and Palestinians have roughly 1,000 years of history there as well.

Hamas' war is a holy war, and their "win" would be the eradication of Jews from our holy land

Israel is not being careful enough in their assault of Hamas: yes, Hamas launches missiles from refugee camps and hospitals and schools, and yes, even by Hamas' numbers Israel only kills 0.8 people per missile, but there is wayyyyyy to much collateral damage.

A ceasefire only means Israel stops defending itself in any capacity, and Hamas continues attacking Israel. It's happened almost 20 times this decade. Hamas doesn't want a ceasefire, they want a concession and then a genocide.

Benjamin Netanyahu should be removed from office, as most of Israel has been asking him to do since summer and earlier.

These are all facts that have been well documented over the past few months and the past few decades.

And that's my "stance"

An end to the conflict needs to happen, but it needs to include the dissolution of Hamas.

sorry for the word salad, but too many Jews are being deemed "zionists" (that word has been distorted on social media these past few months too) simply being anti-hamas.

In the broader world, you see organizations like BDS which maps Jewish communities which has led to schools and temples receiving bomb threats, JVP which has condoned calls for genocide against Jews, and University of Toronto which banned kosher foods. And this is widely accepted, and opponents of these are also called "zionists."

I know that's a lot, but I've been following the I/P conflict and antisemitism for a long time now, and that's the Jewish experience.

[xclowniex]

I got this comment on one of my other posts where I talk about how antizionists who claim they want to deradicalize zionists fail to do so and with their current approach are far more likely to "radicalize" jews.

Whilst this type of set up for a post usually leads into something negative, the comment isn't and I agree with it, I just wanna turn the idea I had of a response into its own post lol

On its own, it is not a radical idea, however it is radical in the sense of it forces a lot of western leftists to either reevaluate their ideas surronding colonialism, indigenousness, peace and justice, or ignore any opportunities of reflection and be bigoted. And obviously one is a lot easier than the other.

Jews and Palestinians don't fall into the classic colonizers vs. colonized categories as well, our history is different than in the west. Palestinians were not originally arab and were arabinzed through consensual and non-consensual means, and jews have been forcibly removed from the region from multiple groups. It does not play into the dichotomy of "white people came to the land, were violent and gained control and oppressed the native population" which is the overly simplified version of what has happened in the majority of western countries.

In the west, to achieve true peace and justice, you have to hand over control either fully or in part to indigenous folk. But because jews and Palestinians don't fall into western understanding of colonization, peace and justice doesn't look like that. It looks like coexistence with both groups holding power and self determination simultaneously.

Then you have the western view of race also in play. Jews don't fall into the western view of race and ethnicity. Because of multiple exoduses, jews come in a wide range of colors. We aren't just white or brown. Jew as an ethnicity comes from the middle east and is not a European ethnicity. Then wherever jews ended up after being forced out of the land complicates things. If they ended up in Africa, you get black jews like those from Beta Israel (in Ethiopia), if they ended up in other parts of the middle east you get Mizrahi jews (some people consider jews from beta Israel also Mizrahi and some don't, as I am not from beta Israel it is not a conversation I need to be a part of). You also have Sephardic jews, and ofc Ashkenazi jews. You have jews from all parts of Asia. Then you have mixed race/interfaith relationships too, which is how you get black folk in the US who are Ashkenazi jewish or Māori who are Ashkenazi like Taika Waititi.

And the whole forcing western ideals surrounding race, history, etc, onto non western countries, is problematic.

Whilst I'm definitely not the first to call it this in this sense, it is western leftism. It may even fall under white leftism.

And to those in which their belief system is entrenched in western and/or white leftism, the idea that jews don't fall into it, is radical to them.

(Tagging the person who made the addition is screenshotted as I feel weird if I don't @boreal-sea

[ocean-sunfish-hater]

Straight Out of the Colonial Playbook:

The Myth of Untouched Lands

The Jewish National Fund (JNF) is an organisation with charity status all across the world. Many people know them as the people who use their little blue boxes to collect money to plant trees. They seem to be doing well to reach their goals, having planted over 250 million trees since 1901. All this seems pretty innocuous, perhaps even noble. After all, the idea of planting trees seems quite divorced from violent settler colonialism.

ID: A large slice of watermelon. You can see the Red of the flesh, the black of the seeds, and the white and green of the rind. It is set against a light teal background, a colour that may invoke peace and calm, much like a free Palestine would.

But the two have long, intertwined histories. Just look to the National Parks of the US, used to grab land from Native Americans with the justification that they were "uninhabited". Colonisation of the Arabian peninsula was partially justified with the argument that native Arabs had degraded the environment to the point of desertification,  and colonial rule was the only way they could be saved from themselves [1]. Unsurprisingly, most of the ecological damage in that region had been done by the colonialists themselves in the pursuit of resources.

The JNF isn't just some minor organisation that has unfortunate ties to questionable powers. Though they shroud themselves in the soft words of environmentalism,  they currently stand as one of the primary tools of violence for Zionism.

Established in 1901 by the 5th Zionist Congress in Basel, Switzerland, they have always been an organisation with settler colonial intentions. In 1940, their leader Yosef Weitz, said “There is no way but to transfer the Arabs from [Palestine] to the neighbouring countries, to transfer all of them… not one village must be left… for this goal funds will be found." [2]. You know what happened to him after the first Nakba? He became the head of the JNF's forestry department [3].

According to their own website, they currently stand as the "single largest provider of Zionist programs in the U.S." [4]. They also own about 13% of all state lands in Israel [5]. They have been both a major driver, and unsurprisingly, benefactor from the ongoing Nakba of the Palestinian people.

So how exactly does planting trees feed into settler colonialism? The model works like this:

The Israeli government violently displaces people from their lands in the name of "self-defence".

The land becomes "uninhabited".

The JNF uses funds they have accrued from overseas donations to buy up the land.

They establish a national park in the area and begin to plant trees.

Settlers move into the surrounding regions. The JNF have a policy of not leasing land or accommodation to non-Jewish people [5].

Any remigration of indigenous people back into those lands is framed as "environmental destruction" and those people are forced out once more.

You know what's sneaky? They are using trees as bodies. They don’t have enough people to colonise all the land they've stolen, so they plant trees to occupy the spaces that human bodies cannot. They deliberately use fast growing trees like pines to aid in this pursuit [3]. Each forest acts as an occupying force, just one that uses seeds instead of bullets and trees instead of soldiers.

Most of their efforts are concentrated on Naqab (Negev in Hebrew), a region in the south of Israel mostly consisting of desert. On their website, the JNF boast of their Blueprint Negev initiative, and how it's "transformed Israel’s Negev Desert, making the Southern Israel an attractive place to live and work" [4]. Their mission statement in the Naqab includes the justification that they are providing homes, jobs and opportunities in the "empty" region [6]. One of the slogans have on their website is "Building the Negev, town by town"[6]. This is explicitly a settler colonial project, and all of it can be found on JNF website, in their own words.

And to top it all off, you guessed it, the Naqab is far from uninhabited. It was never empty land. In August 2018, 350 villagers from Umm al-Hiran were displaced to the state-regulated Bedouin township, Hura to accommodate the expansion of the Beit Yatir settlement in the Yatir forest, which was planted by the JNF [5]. In 2010, Nuri-al-Uqbi presented evidence that his ancestors had owned and lived in the lands of al-Araqib since before the Israeli occupation to the courts. In 2010, a Beersheva judge rejected the case, siding with the government's claims that his tribe had no ownership claims on the land [7]. The indigenous peoples of Palestine are constantly disenfranchised, displaced, and have very little means of winning their land back within an Apartheid legal system.

The JNF are using strategies employed by colonial powers in the past to violently seize land from native peoples. Acting under the guise of environmentalism "launders" the colonisation, adding extra steps in between the expulsion of people from their homes and the eventual settlement of that land by colonists, with the added bonus of making the JNF look very good. And you know what? Their reforestation schemes suck. Fast growing, new growth forests in the DESERT are not a substitute for old growth forests, not to mention the enormous amount of water they must be using to keep these forests as, well, forests.

What boils my blood the most is that you can see them honouring their colonial inspirations and sponsors in how they name their parks. Britannia park in the Hebron district obviously takes its name from Britain, a country instrumental in the establishment of the Israeli state and the Nakba that has ensued. Fittingly, it sits upon the ruins of seven Palestinian villages, destroyed by Israel during the first Nakba [8].

And this isn't just stuff that has happened in the past, but is happening right now. JNF UK is currently receiving donations to plant a memorial forest "to commemorate those who were brutally murdered on October 7." For £100, you can plant one tree. For £250, you can contribute to an outdoor seating area for group events. For £36, you can pay for an irrigation system that will provide enough water for one tree for four years [9]. Doesn't it make you angry? 36,000+ Palestinians have been murdered, and the JNF are collecting money to water trees on their graves.

I hate it when scientists stay neutral. We and our work are not divorced from the world around us. Conservation means nothing if it comes at the cost of human lives; it means nothing if it is used to veil the atrocities of colonialism and apartheid. It is our duty as conservationists, and as human beings to hear those whose voices carry cries for help, and answer the call. Do not be won over by the siren song of green colonialism.

Free Palestine. May all empires fall.

Bibliography

[1] Skandrani, Z., Decolonizing ecological research. Journal of Environmental Studies and Sciences, 2018. 8(3): p. 368-370.

[2] Stop the JNF, The JNF, Apartheid and Settler Colonialism. (Spring 2024). https://www.stopthejnf.org/the-jnf-apartheid-and-settler-colonialism-spring-2024/

 [3] Stop the JNF, Tower and Stockades, Forests and Jim Crow Vetting Commitees. https://www.stopthejnf.org/jnfs-sordid-history-tower-and-stockades-forests-and-jim-crow-vetting-committees-by-jonathan-cook/

[4] Jewish National Fund, We are JNF. https://www.jnf.org/menu-3/about-jnf

[5] Amnesty International, ISRAEL: APARTHEID IN ACTION. Amnesty international: submission to the 43rd session of the UPR working group, 9 May 2023.

[6] Jewish National Fund UK, Homepage, https://www.jnf.co.uk/

[7] Jonathan Cook, Bedouins defiant despite Israel eviction plan. https://www.jonathan-cook.net/2014-06-14/bedouins-defiant-despite-israel-eviction-plan/

[8] Palestine Land Society, Britannia Park - Burial and Treachery. https://www.plands.org/en/articles-speeches/articles/2022/britannia-park-burial-and-treachery

[9] Jewish National Fund UK, Green Sunday 2024 – Memorial Forest. https://israelunderattack.jnf.co.uk/projects/green-sunday-2024-memorial-forest/

[weemietime]

I've been percolating this for a while. One of the hardest things about being Jewish is how nowadays, even commonly accepted historical facts are now seen as debatable when it comes to Jews. Our very history itself is being actively rewritten in front of our eyes. Bad actors continually vandalize Jewish articles on Wikipedia to co-opt our intracommunal terms and bastardize them against us.

Just look at the difference from 2021 to 2024 in the Zionism article. You can see where they've left shit alone in other places that contradicts this, such as clearly defining Palestinians as Arabs and then clearly defining Arabs as native to Paran/Saudi Arabia. To this day people push the false narrative that Jews are settler colonialists in our own homeland, ignoring that the Ottomans, which most Palestinians are descended from (the Arab migration during the Ottoman Empire, not Turks), were living on stolen land.

They stole it. They (Arabs) built Al-Aqsa over our most precious religious site. And if you say this, people turn around and call you Islamophobic. It'd be like if Americans accused Native Americans of being European and decided that actually, they are the indigenous population, and if you have a problem with that you're Christophobic.

31% of the total Israeli population is Ashkenazi and out of that number there are a good deal more who escaped active pogroms and persecutions in places like Russia and Poland. The Kielce pogrom happened after WW2. The majority of Israeli Jews are Mizrahi at 61%. So the narrative as it is now looks like the following:

- Yemeni Jews are entirely expunged and ethnically cleansed from Yemen. The last remaining Jew is jailed.

- Yemen deports these Jews to Israel.

- The Houthis release a statement saying that Israel must be destroyed.

- Everyone accuses the Yemeni Jews of Israel of being genocidal colonizers in their own homeland which they were expunged from.

There is such an overwhelmingly massive campaign emerging from the Islamic Republic in particular as well as Hamas to rewrite history and erase Jewish indigeneity in Israel altogether even though again, Ashkenazim (who they claim are European, but again, are indigenous to the Levant) are a minority in Israel.

We all just ignore that Arabs cannot even pronounce the word Palestine, yet they want to claim that Palestinians have been Palestinians for thousands of years in Israel.

[psychotrenny]

Self-Indigenisation is something that I brought up on an earlier post and I think it’s something more people should be aware of. It describes the way that Settler populations will claim Indigenous identities for themselves in order to justify their presence on the land and mistreatment of actually Indigenous populations. This can include using tenuous or even outright fabricated Lineal connections to indigenous peoples in order to claim membership to a group they have no social or cultural ties to. The most well-known example in North America are USAmericans who claim that their grandmother was a “Cherokee Princess” or something of the like in an attempt to buttress their identity as being in some way more impressive or “authentic”. Another example I’ve read about is White Quebecois (who at most might have a very distant indigenous ancestor, and sometimes not even then) with no connection to Indigenous communities claiming indigenous identity in order to launch lawsuits over land rights, sometimes even to the direct detriment of actually indigenous communities. Self-Indigenisation can also include claims that a particular settler population itself has some deep enough connection to the land that it can be considered indigenous. In South East Australia in the 1930s you had locally born Settlers explicitly assert themselves as the original inhabitants of the land and the actual indigenous peoples as nothing more than peripheral transients. The idea of US Appalachian settler populations being some sort of indigenous people has become a recurring one in scholarship and activism in the region and serves as way to assert the rightfulness of their ownership of the land even in a progressive and supposedly anti-colonial context. I haven’t personally read it myself but apparently the book Distorted Descent by Darryl Leroux does a pretty good job of exploring Self-Indigenisation in contemporary Canada.

While most of the literature on the subject I could find focused on North America*, this process if far from unique to that region. Indeed, Self-Indigenisation is one of the major rhetorical strategies used to justify the continued existence of Israel especially in more “progressive” spaces. Like hell even just being active on tumblr recently is going to expose you to numerous Zionist claiming that the Israelis are the true natives of Palestine and that the Palestinian Arabs are merely “squatters”. “Zionism means Landback” and other such nonsense. To be clear there is very much an indigenous Jewish population in Palestine, the “Old Yishuv” Shepardim, but the Settlers who established the state of Israel are very not much it not it no matter how much they try and construct such an identity (such as by suppressing traditionally spoken Jewish languages like Yiddish and replacing them with a reconstructed for of Hebrew) or repute the identity of indigenous Arabs. Essentially self-indigenisation is an especially heinous tool that Settler populations use to evict indigenous peoples on a spiritual level in order to maintain their physical displacement. Such rhetoric must be resisted and discredited as much as possible lest it’s able to have its intended effect

*I suppose it makes sense given that I was only looking at English-language literature and that region is home to the most populous of Anglo settler states

[dalishious]

Hi Lydia-Marc!

I want to reach out to you because of something you posted. Usually when I reach out like this, I get blocked, I’m hoping you’ll be willing to listen.

You said that “Zionism is a colonial movement that supports building an ethno-national state for Jewish people on top of Palestine, by any means necessary.” And then linked to Al Jazeera as proof.

I want to start by pointing out that Al Jazeera is the state media of Qatar, a nation that in its state approved textbooks teaches that the Protocols of the Elders of Zion (a debunked soviet antisemitic conspiracy theory) are true, as well as teaching that Jews are evil, and that the holocaust isn’t real/the holocaust was actually a Jewish plot to further their nefarious goals (https://efile.fara.gov/docs/3492-Informational-Materials-20200917-70.pdf). I am asking that you acknowledge that if that is what’s in state run textbooks, then the state media outlet might also be biased against Jews.

What you state Zionism is sound more like Kahanism (https://imeu.org/article/fact-sheet-meir-kahane-the-extremist-kahanist-movement ), a movement that most Jews (and most Jews – about 80-90% depending on the survey – are Zionist) thoroughly denounce. The founder and his political party were actually banned from participating in the Israeli government because most Jews found the movement so disgusting.

Zionism is actually a land back movement that supports self-determination for Jews in their ancestral homeland. (https://www.britannica.com/topic/Zionism ) A lot of leftists have decided to try to change the definition of the word into something more like what you said, but it’s a Jewish word to describe a Jewish movement, and non-Jews don’t get to define our words for us.

Applying a colonizer/colonized lens to the area is not really useful, but if you must, then please recognize that we have archeological evidence of Jews in the southern Levant going back over 3000 years (https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/28/opinion/jewish-history-israel.html ), genetic evidence that even the whitest looking Ashkenazi Jews have middle eastern genetic markers (https://www.pnas.org/doi/full/10.1073/pnas.100115997 ), and written evidence from Rome talking about the Jews living in the area. In fact, we have maps showing that the area that is now called Palestine, used to be called Iudea (https://www.worldhistory.org/image/269/map-of-the-roman-empire-in-125-ce/ ) prior to Rome conquering the area, extracting its wealth, and taking the native, Jewish, population as slaves back to the empire (https://www.worldhistory.org/The_Bar-Kochba_Revolt/ , https://www.britannica.com/event/Siege-of-Jerusalem-70 ). The people who identify as Palestinian are the descendants of the people who filled the void left by Rome’s abduction of the Jews, and the descendants of the actual colonizers from the Arabian peninsula who showed up hundreds of years after the majority of Jews had already been evicted. The area has been colonized repeatedly, just not the way you claim.

I, personally, as a Zionist, am in favor of a two state solution, and I know many other Zionists that feel the same way. Palestinians have been living on the land a long time, and should have a state, but there is no denying that the area is the Jewish homeland, and they should be allowed a state of their own as well. It is frustrating to see so many people decide that self-determination (a human right!) is something that should be denied to the Jews, simply because they were conquered so long ago that everyone considers the colonizer’s presence to be “normal.” Apparently, somewhere along the line, Jewish indigeneity expired.

I hope you’re still reading this. I hope you’re willing to listen. If you have any questions, or want to discuss this further, I’m happy to talk.

Anyway,

[ladyimaginarium]

g-d as an antizionist native jew you literally cannot win.

on one hand you'll have uber hardcore zionists & also technically, kahanists (because it's important to keep in mind that not every zionist thinks the same way & there's different types of zionism & to listen to jewish voices about this topic bc i'm tired of goyim speaking over jews on a term that jewish people created, but for the unaware: kahanism is basically a type of far right zionism that straight up is like "the land of israel should be for jews Only & anyone who isn't jewish don't get the same rights as jewish people",) who will believe that you're. somehow a "traitor" or "not a real jew/self hating jew" for y'know not. wanting to have your jewishness be associated with medinat yisrael (the modern state of israel, there's a difference between am yisrael, the jewish people, eretz yisrael, the physical land & medinat israel, the modern state of israel), specifically the government's actions against not just palestinians but others too or by simply saying that "hey man regardless of how you feel about zionism, it's a nationalist ideology that, like many other nationalisms, has harmed people & zionism Has harmed palestinians & they have every right to talk about it, just like the mayans & those at sbrenica who were also affected by it" & i was blocked by a zionist for saying that or denying palestinian indigeneity alongside jewish indigeneity (because some straight up just think that only jews are indigenous there which. just isn't true, jews & palestinians are literally related & they both have a shared connection to that land), making excuses for the israeli government & the iof's actions, & misconstruing land back shit into a violent movement when it isn't & even be islamophobic & racist towards natives including native jews who naturally feel a sense of solidarity to the palestinian cause because we know what it's like to be displaced & killed by an occupying government.

& THEN on the other hand you'll have many nonpalestinian goyische/nonjewish western leftist antizionists who think they somehow have a free pass to say whatever they want & think they somehow can't be antisemitic & racist just because they support the free palestine movement, some give a platform to well known bigots & antisemites who literally spout blood libel & antisemitic conspiracy theories & many don't even notice let alone care just because they agree with said people on other types of activism, supporting groups like jvp when it's basically the autism speaks for jews, engage in atrocity denial & terrorism apologia because nothing says resistance like cheering on violent antisemitism against jews (/sarcastic) you disagree with & thinking that groups like hamas, hezbollah, the houthis etc are based people when multiple palestinians from gaza & other people like iranians, syrians & yemeni have spoke up against them when hamas killed 1200 people, mostly civilians, but apparently that doesn't matter & throwing all their morals they claim to support down the drain & be antisemitic or islamophobic to innocent individuals who had nothing to do with the warcrimes being committed & excusing the inexcusable & justifying the unjustifiable, conflating jewish people with white european people, calling random ass jews "zionists" even when they say repeatedly that they aren't even for just calling out their antisemitism, literally using slurs used by the literal fucking kkk (i.e "zio" & any variants of the word), people waking up & graduating from the instagram-tiktok school of law thinking they know everything about this topic when they don't, people treating this very serious thing like a fandom with teams when people aren't your blorbos or celebrities, these are real people who are traumatized, grieving, suffering & dying, treat them like people, some people can't understand the very basic concept that you can fight for more than one cause & one community at the same time, they don't call out the virulent antisemitism in their own movement, deny jewish people Any type of connection & historical presence to the southern levant despite there being a fuckton of historical, cultural & archaeological evidence & straight up deny jewish history in the region, stay silent when there are jews literally being harassed, beat up, sexually assaulted, & murdered in the streets & mobs have already been targeting jewish neighborhoods & synagogues & almost nobody outside of jewish people are talking about any of this & almost none of these people are deconstructing their antisemitism & when that happens that just allows the far right to further advance itself & its agenda. because a lot of these people think they're immune to propaganda & antisemitism when they're really not because some people will straight up be parroting nazi shit & most people don't even blink an eye except for jewish people & most people from what i've seen don't do anything about this huge issue & these are coming from the same people who're like "punch all nazis!!".

& regardless of either side of the discourse even when we& say "hey uh. we& believe in ceasefire de-escalation humanitarianism accountability justice reparations & the hopes of saving as many lives as possible & we reject all forms of dehumanization, racism, antisemitism, islamophobia, xenophobia, harassment of innocents, scapegoating & collective punishment, every human life is precious & no one should have to fear for their life, we hold human rights to be universal & nonnegotiable, a value we hold above every movement, ideology or cause just as we've been taught by our elders, our indigenous beliefs & jewish ethics, we want liberation, safety, dignity & self determination & a homeland for everyone & we haven't made an exception to this topic" some people would probably just assume that we're "both-sideism" or being "centrist" when like. no dude that's literally just a humane take on things, not a neutral one & it's. really fucking weird that that's somehow a hot controversial take to have.

like. you get antisemitism from literally every possible side of the spectrum regardless of their politics, its insidious & it's not fun At All.

[tamamita]

Saw a zionist say "well Americans can't understand things that were very long ago [side note: this might be the one idea on their blog with any legs to it] so sure, the Palestinians who've lived there for ages now may SEEM like they were displaced, but if you go back further, like BC times, you'll find it was Jewish people living there first, not Muslims" like. I kinda just wanna send them a screenshot of a Google search of "how old is Islam"

Once again, Palestinians were an Arabized people following the Arab expansion. Even before Islam, the people who lived there were still the ancestors of the Palestinian people today. They're literally descendants of the ancient Canaanites! The same thing happened to the Native Americans of Turtle Island, many of whom were culturally assimilated in the wake of English colonialization. This does not change the fact that they are natives to the land despite the sociological process of cultural, religious, and linguistic changes.

Also, Zionists love to exclude other Arab minorities, such as Jewish Arabs, Samaritan Arabs and Christian Arabs.

[latent-thoughts]

The Jews weren't the first natives in that region. The Canaanites were there before the Jews showed up to violently erase them from existence for the terrible crime of not being of Yahweh's choosen people. All Jews know this. It is literally in the fucking book. You know this.

Don't lie in order to defend the idea that Israel is a thing that absolutely must exist. It's fine that you believe that idea, but what's getting irksome is this underlying insistence that "Israel must exist" is an obvious conclusion to the region's problems and anyone who has a modicum of moral fiber in their soul can clearly see that. Your religion isn't true to the people who aren't you. I do not recognize the Jews as a chosen, special sort of people and I shouldn't be expected to. And, yes, I can tell when it's expected because they'll get annoyed when I mention the Canaanites. Yeah, I've seen the eye-rolls, the "history's a complex mess so I'm justified in picking and choosing what events humanity should give a shit about based on how recent they are and how much the directly affect MY culture" bullshit, the accusations of antisemitism despite the fact that I would be completely fine with the existence of Israel if the people who made it didn't, well, slaughter the families of Canaanites in order to do so. Also, Israel isn't a person or a type of person, it's a state, it's completely fine to hate and isn't synonymous with hating Jews. If you think that it is, I'm going to remind you that people who aren't Jewish exist and they don't need to necessarily have the values Jews want them to in order to good people.

If the foundation of your state is built on moving into land that isn't yours and erasing the people that your god doesn't want there, it's completely reasonable to expect that other states might just return that favor in kind. After all, you set the precedent, right? And then constantly referred to it in your holy texts like it was the best, most necessary thing that ever needed to happen. That kind of zeal certainly won't spread.

Oh boy, I'm going to say it. I think that all of the states that have ever engaged in and justified (I'm going to say it) genocidal behavior aren't really... y'know worth defending? Worth giving a shit about? And yeah, saying "God needed us to do it! We are the chosen people! HOLY LAND!" is a shitty justification. Objectively shitty. Jewish people aren't the chosen people to anyone else besides other Jewish people. Nothing really wrong with that, but... nothing really that right with it either. It kinda cancels itself out.

Long ask, I know. Whatever. Stop lying. The Canaanites were there before the Jews. The Jews killed them all then called the land they stole from them "Israel". See? There are perfectly good reasons to hate Israel that have nothing to do with Palestine.

C'mon, the Americas had fucking slavery. England tried to take over the world. Hell, Germany tried to kill all of you! Israel is another shitty place. It isn't special.

I vow to ignore Israel from now on, achieving everlasting peace and making the entire Middle East envious of me.

Oh, and to be absolutely clear in the most awkward manner possible, I don't hate the Jews. I just find their bullshit to be really fucking annoying.

If the Jews killed them all, how is it that their DNA is still dominant in modern day Jews (plus Palestinians and other populations of Levant)?

The truth is that both Jews and Palestinians were part of the same people at some point in time, who also mixed with Canaanites and settled in the region that is modern day Israel+Levant. And Canaanites' ancestors had actually arrived in that region from further East.

So by your logic, then, even the Canaanites weren't the natives of that land.

(There may have been tribal wars, as was common in that era, but it's pretty clear that no one wiped out anyone.)

We can keep going back in time to disprove the indigeneity of people till we arrive in Africa. Which is kind of moronic, TBH.

Personally, I'm not denying the indigeneity of either Jews or Palestinians. Only you are trying to justify your hatred for Jews and denying that they have a right to live in their homeland. Just by saying that you don't hate Jews doesn't veil your anti-semitism.

Both Jews and Palestinians deserve to live there. A two state solution is one way for it. Terrorism by Hamas isn't.

Furthermore, if you know your history (which I'm having doubts about), you know that Jews were persecuted and driven out of almost all the countries and kingdoms they had moved to over the centuries. There were Jews in the Middle Eastern countries, African countries, Europe, etc.. Tell me what happened to them. If you can't, you don't understand why Jews wanted a country of their own, in their native homeland.

With the exception of India, they were either killed, forcefully converted, or driven out of these countries at some point in time. The Holocaust is just one such instance over the centuries, and it was a big deal. The present day rising anti-semitism only strengthens their belief that they're never fully accepted in other places. Hence their need for self determination and separate state of their own (which they already have, btw).

Also, I know you didn't bother to check before coming in my inbox to spew venom, but I'm not Jewish. I'm not even from that region. But I understand what it means to have a history that's full of massacres and genocide of my people.

Plus, I'm someone who likes to stay informed, someone who's against anti-semitism. I don't need to be a Jew to understand where they're coming from.

[hadesoftheladies]

as we’re all condemning the Israeli occupation of Gaza and palestine as well as the anti-semitism sweeping the world I really truly hope we remember that all this is because of the imperial West.

This is the work of the colonial powers of the US, UK, France, Russia, Germany etc. When Congolese, Palestinians, Sudanese, Ukrainians are being slaughtered, it is THEM who are benefiting. It is THEM who instigate these atrocities against human beings. It is THEM who start and fund the wars. The West has been the #1 bastion for anti-Semitism (not that anti-semitism is not there in other parts of the world). The Western Empires have killed billions of innocent human beings for wealth. They have harvested nations for CENTURIES. They have massacred countless people for money. It isn’t just stolen wealth, it’s blood money. Their power didn’t end with the slave trade. They are still the biggest human traffickers. They still profit off the labor of ordinary folk in the global south. UNFAIRLY. Colonizers deliberately agitated different ethnic groups within the regions they colonized to encourage instability and discord. The US has been instrumental in modern times when it comes to this strategy of destabilization. Everything that happened in the colonial scramble of the 18th and 19th centuries, such as creating reckless borders that affect inter-ethnic relations to this day, treating their land as play things, is something that has contributed to the situation in Palestine. Just read about the UN’s hand in it. The US is still killing Native Americans today. France is still killing Central Africans today. I am so tired of different genocides gaining traction on social media and people acting like these are all random, isolated incidents that just popped out of the ground. THEY HAVE BEEN HAPPENING FOR DECADES IF NOT CENTURIES. The culprits are always the same.

LOOK AT THEM. EMPIRES BUILT ON MASS SLAVERY AND GENOCIDE WILL NEVER ESCAPE THEIR ROOTS.

THEY MUST CONTINUE TO SUSTAIN THEMSELVES ON THE BLOOD OF INNOCENTS.

THEY MUST BE RESISTED AND DISSOLVED.

[bargainbinwizard]

What the fuck is wrong with you Israel

I've been pretty silent on the Israel and Gaza war for a long time but it's come to a point that I needed to get magically involved. It's an ugly situation all around. Israel mass murdering Palestinians,Hamas being a thing, Antisemites coming out of the woodwork,Israel booting people from their land and people saying that Israel as a country should cease to exist...even though Jews were native to Israel (aka Canaan) but got conquered by the Babylonians and Romans in ancient times and so as a consequence, they were spread out across the globe getting shat on by everybody in history. But I can't even say that Israel is defending themselves from Hamas because they're too busy fucking around in the Gaza strip shooting down people getting flour.

I'm just going to make it very clear that just because I say that Israel as a country should exist ✨DOES NOT MEAN THAT I SUPPORT ISRAEL KILLING PEOPLE OR THEIR CRUELITY TOWARDS THE PALASTINIANS ✨. I don't want anybody popping onto my page to villainize me and putting words in my mouth. I may not have the funds to save the entirety of Gaza but that doesn't mean I haven't been donating. Also I do my Gaza/Israel reblogging on my main blog,this is just a side blog. That's why you haven't seen anything here. I don't want to hear from any of you that I'm secretly rubbing my hands evilly and cackling watching Israel bomb Rafah.

In short, fuck nazis and people who think that being an antisemite makes you a hero. Go do something useful with your time like donate to Gaza charities like a normal person, would you?

Anyway, in terms of my magical work. I've been focusing on trying to get the news channels on tv to talk about what kind of nasty shit Israel soldiers have been doing in Gaza. There's pictures and videos on the internet from the Palestinians being killed,Israel soldiers talking pictures of themselves on children's' bicycles that they've stolen,olive trees being destroyed and so on and so forth. Yet, the only thing the news wants to focus on is Hamas and making Israel looking like the good guy. If I can get get the news to talk about Israel's war crimes and the corruption in the Israel military /government with pictures then I've done my job. Well,I may need to create a peace spell to somehow make Israel and Gaza stop fighting. Not sure what spell components I need to use.

Its also pretty shitty that there are so many fundraisers to get people out from Gaza and to give people aid that I don't have the funds to save everybody,just give people a measly 20 dollars while their fundraiser goals are several thousand dollars. And if I donate to one charity, I'm not donating to the others and that means they'll have to suffer. I don't have the wallet of Mr. Beast or Bill Gates. I can't save everybody and they might die before they reach their fundraiser goals. And more fundraisers are going to pop up.

EDIT: Added some links. I made it fair by talking about both Hamas and Israel.

[weemietime]

Happy Hanukkah! Hope you're doing well

Would you say being a zionist or supporting zionism is "picking a side" in the war? Sorry if it's a silly question, but I've noticed a lot of Palestinian or people related to palestinians on this site are understandably antizionist, even when they aren't antisemitic. I've been told I'm being somewhat hypocritical by claiming to be neutral and supporting zionism(which btw i only meant in a non-extremist way) . So I just wanna clear it up, bc I am against Israel's actions too.

I would say it's complicated. Zionism itself must be defined before you can say you do or do not agree with that term as applied to you. So, in general, Zionism is very broad. Quite simply it boils down to the recognition of Jews as the indigenous people of Israel and the right of said people to self-determine in their communities within their native land.

With regard to the war, I actually do not view Zionism as taking a side for or against Palestinian self-determination, freedom and dignity. I am a Zionist because I am a Jew, a part of the indigenous tribe of people connected for thousands of years to this land and this place.

But I acknowledge that whilst Palestinians are a recent identity and whilst they didn't undergo ethnogenesis in Israel, they've lived there for a long time and it's silly to expect that they wouldn't consider it their homeland as well. And I support that, I think that's OK -- IF it's not being levied as a supercessionist attempt to claim Arabs are the real indigenous peoples of Israel and Jews are just European invaders.

But Palestinians are our neighbors, for better and for worse. And we must find a way to coexist and live in peace, because we want an ally by our side, not an enemy at the gates. And unfortunately, our conduct has been veering hard from the precepts that tie our people together since we accepted the Torah at Sinai.

Yes, "El" was originally the "God of Banners." There is a lot of rhetoric in the Torah that approves of "crushing your enemies." But, as a people, as we moved toward Rabbinic Judaism, we must follow the lead of our forefathers and shed the harmful impetus of vengeance. There are also many verses in the Torah that promote compassion and good-will even toward an enemy.

I don't view Palestinians as my enemy. I view them as my neighbors. And I want to be a good citizen and advocate for prosperity and wellbeing for all who live in and around Israel, Gaza and the West Bank, and indeed in every place on Earth.

There is plenty of room within the confines of Zionism to condemn the actions of the Israeli government. Zionism does not mean that we unconditionally support the government. Zionism is about all of us Jews, as a whole entire people. So bad actors like Netanyahu are fundamentally acting against the interests of Zionists and Jews everywhere by causing harm and suffering where it is not warranted.

And that, along with forced military conscription in general, is a searing wound that has been inflicted on us and continues to be inflicted. And we are feeling those reverberations. It's spiritually harmful. (And chag sameach to you and yours!!! Happy Honk!)