#pro hamas activists

[the-garbanzo-annex-jr]

by Dexter Van Zile

I recently witnessed something I haven't seen in a long time. On Friday, August 16, 2024, a group of pro-Hamas activists packed up their signs and went home in the face of spirited and non-violent opposition from a coalition of pro-American Iranians and American Jews.

The last time I saw anything like that happen was in 2006 or 2007, when I led a crowd of Israel supporters in chants in order to silence a heckler standing on the sidewalk near the town common in Amherst, Massachusetts. The ridicule was enough to prompt him and his fellow anti-Israel activists to walk away, as we cheered their departure. It was glorious.

On August 16, 2024, the pro-Hamas activists conducted their retreat from Lexington in two stages.

First, they walked away from the intersection of Massachusetts Avenue and Pleasant Street, where they have been protesting on an intermittent basis since October 7. Then, after they retreated a couple of hundred feet down Mass. Ave. (while tenacious, but peaceful, pro-Israel protesters followed them), the Hamas supporters packed up their signs and withdrew altogether, leaving an Iranian-born American citizen to conduct a solitary rear-guard action. Once the pro-Israel protesters took pity on the police officers charged with keeping the peace and got ready to leave, the pro-Hamas supporter also left — clearly a little bit worse for wear.

The pro-Hamas folks did not abandon the site of their weekly standout because they were outnumbered. The two groups were evenly matched. In fact, the pro-Hamasniks may have even enjoyed a slight numerical advantage over the pro-Israel folks who challenged them. Nevertheless, it was the anti-Israel folks who retreated.

The pro-Israel activists, who had coalesced around a core of Iranian human rights activists associated with From Boston to Iran, used a very simple message to break the resolve of the pro-Hamas activists: "You are on the side of rapists and murderers."

The pro-Hamas protesters tried countering with the lie that Israel is committing a "genocide" in Gaza, but it didn't work on the pro-Israel folks who just kept repeating their message: If you're pro-Hamas, you're siding with rapists and murderers. They offered this message in chants and individual conversations.

The pro-Israel folks didn't bother reminding their opponents that Hamas attacks civilians while hiding behind civilians, thereby making civilian casualties inevitable. They didn't waste their breath reminding the pro-Hamas folks that Arab and Muslim leaders have killed millions of Arab and Muslim civilians without much comment from the progressive left in the United States. The pro-Israel folks knew these facts — but didn't waste their time repeating them on the streets of Lexington. They just kept repeating the central truth of the conflict in Gaza: Hamas is a bunch of rapists and murderers, and many leftists and anti-democratic radicals in the US have taken their side.

Most importantly, our strategy worked.

By repeating the simple truth of what's happening in the Middle East, a gathering of pro-Israel Jews and Iranians stripped a gathering of pro-Hamas protesters of the moral superiority in which they have wrapped themselves since October 7. By sticking to the "Hamas is a bunch of rapists and murderers" message, pro-Israel activists reminded any self-proclaimed progressives who joined the Hamas supporters, that the October 7 massacre was not performed to "liberate" the Palestinians — but to build a social order in the Middle East in which terror and violence is the dominant culture, as opposed to peace, tolerance, and full rights for all religions, genders, and minorities.

It is no accident that Iranians who oppose the theocratic leadership in Tehran have become a powerful force of anti-Hamas activism in the United States. Having to deal with the rapists and murderers who oppress their friends and relatives, Iranian human rights activists understand that the violence against moderate Muslims, non-Muslims, and women in Iran has a common root with the violence of the October 7 massacre. They know that the violence perpetrated against Iranian and Israeli women is justified by radical Islamism, a supremacist ideology that privileges the rights of Muslim men over non-Muslims and women.

Although leftists should know this as well — many don't, and they need to be reminded repeatedly, and publicly, of the true nature of the radical Islamist movement they help support. One day, they will be the target of the Islamist oppression endured by Iranians and Israelis and when it happens, they won't be allowed to say no one told them.

[eretzyisrael]

Source

[infiniteglitterfall]

Someone on Reddit made the mistake of saying, "Teach me how this conflict came about" where I could see it.

Let me teach you too.

The common perception is that Jews came out of nowhere, stole Palestinian homes and kicked Palestinians out of them, and then bombed them for 75 years, until they finally rebelled in the form of Hamas invading Israel and massacring 22 towns in one day.

The historical reality is that Jews have lived there continuously for at least 3500 years.

There are areas, like Meggido iirc, with archeological evidence of continuous habitation for 7,000 years, but Jewish culture as we recognize it today didn't develop until probably halfway through that.

Ethnic Jews are the indigenous people of this area.

Indigeneity means a group was originally there, before any colonization happened, and that it has retained a cultural connection to the land. History plus culture.

That's what Jews have: even when the diaspora became larger than the number of Jews in Israel, the yearning to return to that homeland was a daily part of Jewish prayer and ritual.

The Jewish community in Israel was crushed pretty violently by the Roman Empire in 135 CE, but it was still substantial, sometimes even the majority population there, for almost a thousand years.

The 600s CE brought the advent of Islam and the Arab Empire, expanding out from Saudi Arabia into Israel and beyond. It was largely a region where Jews were second-class citizens. But it was still WAY better than the way Christian Europe treated Jews.

From the 700s-900s, the area saw repeated civil wars, plagues, and earthquakes.

Then the Crusades came, with waves of Christians making "pilgrimages to the Holy Land" and trying to conquer it from Muslims and Jews, who they slaughtered and enslaved.

Israel became pretty well depopulated after all that. It was a very rough time to live there. (And for the curious, I'm calling it Israel because that's what it had been for centuries, until the Romans erased the name and the country.)

By the 1800s, the TOTAL population of what's now Israel and Palestine had varied from 150,000 - 275,000 for centuries. It was very rural, very sparsely populated, on top of being mostly desert.

In the 1880s, Jews started buying land and moving back to their indigenous homeland. As tends to happen, immigration brought new projects and opportunities, which led to more immigration - not only from Jews, but from the Arab world as well.

Unfortunately, there was an antisemitic minority spearheaded by Amin al-Husseini. Who was very well-connected, rich, and from a politically powerful family.

Al-Husseini had enthusiastically participated in the Armenian Genocide under the Ottoman Empire. Then the Empire fell in World War One, and the League of Nations had to figure out what to do with its land.

Mostly, if an area was essentially operating as a country (e.g. Turkey), the League of Nations let it be one. In areas that weren't ready for self-rule, it appointed France or Britain to help them get there.

In recognition of the increased Jewish population in their traditional, indigenous homeland, it declared that that homeland would again become Israel.

As in, the region was casually called Palestine because that was the lay term for "the Holy Land." It had not been a country since Israel was stamped out; only a region of a series of different empires. And the Mandate For Palestine said it was establishing "a national home of the Jewish people" there, in recognition of "the historical connection of the Jewish people with Palestine and to the grounds for reconstituting their national home in that country."

Britain was appointed to help the Arab and Jewish communities there develop systems of self-government, and then to work together to govern the region overall.

At least, that was the plan.

Al-Husseini, who was deeply antisemitic, did not like this plan.

And, extra-unfortunately, the British response to al-Husseini inciting violent anti-Jewish riots was to put him in a leadership role over Arab Palestine.

They thought it would calm him down and perhaps satisfy him.

They were very wrong.

He went on to become a huge Hitler fanboy, and then a Nazi war criminal. He co-created the Muslim Brotherhood - which Hamas is part of - with fellow fascist fanboy Hassan al-Banna.

He got Nazi Party funding for armed Muslim Brotherhood militias to attack Jews and the Brits in the late 30s, convincing Britain to agree to limit Jewish immigration at the time when it was most desperately needed.

He started using the militias again in 1947, when the United Nations voted to divide the mandated land into a Jewish homeland and a Palestinian one.

Al-Husseini wouldn't stand for a two-state solution. He was determined to tolerate no more than the subdued, small Jewish minority of second-class citizens that he remembered from his childhood.

As armed militias increasingly ran riot, the Arab middle and upper classes increasingly left. About 100,000 left the country before May 1948, when Britain was to pull out, leaving Israel and Palestine to declare their independence.

The surrounding nations didn't want war. They largely accepted the two-state solution.

But al-Husseini lobbied HARD. And by mobilizing the Muslim Brotherhood to provide "destabilizing mass demonstrations and a murderous campaign of intimidation," he got the Arab League nations to agree to invade, en masse, as soon as Britain left.

About 600,000 Arabs fled to those countries during the ensuing war.

Jews couldn't seek refuge there; in fact, most of those countries either exiled their Jews directly, confiscating their property first, or else made Jewish life unlivable and exploited them for underpaid or slave labor for years first.

By the time the smoke cleared and a peace treaty was signed, most of the Arab Palestinian community had fled; there was no Arab Palestinian leadership; many of the refugees' homes and businesses had left had been destroyed in the war; and Israel had been flooded with nearly a million refugees from the Arab League countries and the Holocaust - even more people than had fled the war.

That was the Nakba. The one that gets portrayed as "750,000 Palestinians fled or were expelled!" in the hope that you'll assume they were expelled en masse, their beautiful intact homes all stolen.

Egypt had taken what's now the Gaza Strip in that war, and Jordan took what's now the West Bank - expelling or killing all the Jews in it first.

(Ironically, Jordan was originally supposed to be part of Israel. Britain, inexplicably, cut off what would have been 75% of its land to create Jordan.

Even more inexplicably, nobody ever talks about it. I've never seen anyone complain that Jordan was stolen from Palestinians. Possibly because Jordan is also the only country that gave Palestinian refugees full citizenship, and it's about half Palestinian now.

Israel is nearly 25% Arab Palestinians with full citizenship and equal rights, so it's not all that different -- but the fundamental difference of living in a country where the majority is Jewish, not Muslim, probably runs pretty deep.)

Anyway: that's why Palestine is Gaza and the West Bank, rather than being some contiguous chunk of land. Or being the land set aside by the U.N. in 1947.

Because Arab countries took that land in 1948, and treated them as essentially separate for 20 years.

Israel got them back, along with the Golan Heights and the Sinai Peninsula, in the next war: 1967, when Egypt committed an act of war by taking control of the waterways and barring Israel from them. It gave the Sinai back to Egypt as part of the 1979 peace accords between Egypt and Israel.

Israel tried to give back the Gaza Strip at the same time. Egypt refused.

Palestine finally declared independence in 1988.

But Hamas formed at about the same time. Probably in response, in fact. Hamas is fundamentally opposed to peace negotiations with Israel.

Again: Hamas is part of a group founded by Nazis.

Hamas has its own charter. It explains that Jews are "the enemy," because they control the drug trade, have been behind every major war, control the media, control the United Nations, etc. Basic Nazi rhetoric.

It has gotten adept at masking that rhetoric for the West. But to friendlier audiences, its leaders have consistently said things like, "People of Jerusalem, we want you to cut off the heads of the Jews with knives. With your hand, cut their artery from here. A knife costs five shekels.  Buy a knife, sharpen it, put it there, and just cut off [their heads]. It costs just five shekels."

(Palestinians were outraged by this speech. Palestinians, by and large, absolutely loathe Hamas.

It's just that it's not the same to say that to locals, as it is to say it where major global powers who oppose this crap can hear you.)

Hamas has stated from the beginning that its mission is to violently destroy Israel and take over the land.

It has received $100M in military funding annually, from Iran, for several years. Because Iran has been building a network of fascist, antisemitic groups across the Middle East, in a blatant attempt to control more and more of it: Hezbollah in Lebanon. The Houthis in Yemen.

Iran has been run by a very far-right, deeply antisemitic dictatorship for decades now, which pretty openly wants to take down both Israel and the U.S.

Last year, Iran increased Hamas's funding to $350M.

The "proof of concept" invasion of Israel that Hamas pulled off on October 7th more than justifies a much bigger investment.

Hamas has publicly stated its intention to attack "again and again and again," until Israel has been violently destroyed.

That is how this conflict came about.

A Nazi group seized power in Gaza in 2007 by violently kicking the Palestinian government out, and began running it as a dictatorship, using it to build money and power in preparations for exactly this.

And people find it shockingly easy to believe its own hype about being "the Palestinian resistance."

As well as its propaganda that Israel is not actually targeting Hamas: it's just using a literal Nazi invasion and massacre as an excuse to randomly commit genocide of the fraction of Palestine it physically left 20 years ago.

Despite the fact that Palestinians in Gaza have been protesting HAMAS throughout the war.

[girlactionfigure]

[the-catboy-minyan]

source

[theamazingannie]

Kinda crazy how people will call out celebrities for not speaking up on political issues and then a celebrity WILL speak up on that political issue but doesn’t do it in exactly the way these people want so they’ll call THEM out too and it’s like why tf would anyone want to do anything these days if every action they take gets them called out???

[news4dzhozhar]

[halalchampagnesocialist]

To understand why Israel keeps targeting UNRWA infrastructure and UNRWA workers (and by extension, human rights activists) aside from the accusations they're ~secretly Hamas~, we must put it into the context of which these organisations operate.

To put it lightly, Israel is not a fan of international NGOs and human rights organisations at all, but especially the ones whose existence revolves around advocating for Palestinian rights and exposing the crimes of the occupation. It is not a fan of Palestinian ones at all either, but that goes without saying. I would even suggest that Israeli organisations like "Breaking the Silence" and "BtSelem" fall under this category, even liberal ~coexistence~ type groups like "Standing Together" are seen with suspicion to a degree as they pose a threat to the status quo. The Israeli state and Zionists also see the work of such organisations as a method of "delegitimising Israel" and "singling out Israel" and so on. There is even a pro-Israel organisation called "NGO Monitor" which exists to combat this exact thing.

In the case of UNRWA, there is a specific criticism made by Israel against them (aside from the secret Hamas operative one), and that is they "indoctrinate" Palestinians to hold onto their right of return by perpetually keeping them refugees. Obviously, it's a silly argument that is not worth entertaining. There are a lot of genuine criticisms to be made about UNRWA (which is largely to do with the NGOisation of the Palestinian struggle but that's another post) but they have helped sustain Palestinian existence and livelihoods by providing aid, employment, education and so on. In times of war and crisis, UNRWA has been providing important aid to Palestinians. It's hard not to see Israel's attack on UNRWA as an attack on that.

Even groups which are headed by Palestinians, both in the diaspora and in Palestine, such as International Solidarity Movement (ISM) or Youth Against Settlements, face constant attacks by settlers and soldiers. The purpose of these groups is to demonstrate civil disobedience and resist the occupation non-violently yet still face violence. Others exist merely to just document.

Israel is also so used to operating with impunity that any organisation shedding light on Israel's atrocities against Palestinians is a blow to their propaganda. All the reports, documentaries, and findings produce evidence that then becomes hard to deny or hide. There is a reason why Israel is currently not letting in any journalists or aid workers into Gaza, and even the ones it is letting in it is targeting as we've seen time and time again over the past year.

The problematic nature of NGOisation and the apoliticisation of the human rights framework aside, many of these organisations have played a role in presenting the case of the Palestinian struggle in front of a world audience. The ability to not just document or advocate but be believed is a privilege Westerners have and that's where these organisations tend to come in. As long as these organisations exist and/or have a reason to be in the West Bank and/or Gaza, then Israel cannot do what it actually wants to i.e. constant settlement building, attempted ethnic cleansing and more importantly, trying to convince the world that Palestinians do not have a justified struggle against the occupation and the allegations against Israel are merely "false."

[lizardsfromspace]

There was lots of concern about AI and deepfakes spreading misinformation this election cycle, so let's check in on that!

A lot of right-wing accounts are trying to prove that Kamala Harris' crowds are fake - that all the photos of them are generated with AI. We'll get to that, but let's look at the most...amusing example first.

There's lots of people pointing at an image of a crowd that's obviously been generated with AI, due to extra arms and gibberish writing.

So obviously someone generated this image with AI. Who was it and why? Well, we can actually find the origin pretty easily. It was...

A right-wing satire account. Who put "unexcited Kamala Harris crowd" into a AI image generator to make a "wow, crowds are electric!" joke.

An image their own side generated as satire is now being spread by the right as something Harris/Walz created as proof they're doing the thing they're doing. Incredible. Just a masterclass

Now let's look at the dark stuff.

By and large, AI isn't being used for hoaxes. AI is being used as a excuse: people aren't being tricked by AI images, they're being tricked by accusations real images are AI.

So this hoax went around recently...

This image is old. It spread in 2017, it spread in 2020, and now it's spread in 2024. The Harris/Walz rally wasn't even in the Phoenix Convention Center, or in Phoenix. But it's now a core part of the "no one's attending their rallies!" campaign going on now

This may seem strange if you experience the news by non-conservative media, where you can't escape stories of Kamala Harris filling up massive stadiums & of Trump rallies full of empty seats. All evidence in reality points to Kamala Harris being extremely popular and to Trump's campaign faltering.

But in MAGA land, Kamala Harris' crowds were generated with AI.

Their claims: the crowd isn't in the reflection, and uh, the arms look weird. But also that there "aren't any other images".

But? There are? There was a livestream of that very plane landing (starting at 25)!

They're subjecting what they think is The Only Image of this rally in long Youtube videos and on Twitter and TikTok, and just...don't realize there's full, uncut, commentary-free video of it that was broadcast live. So why don't they realize that?

Well, I did a search for this rally on Fox News' website and guess what? They reported it exactly twice: once a interview with her while leaving that slammed her for "not taking press questions" enough, and a few clips of the Palestinian protestors at it, but not many, bc if you don't follow the far right they're trying to frame Kamala Harris as, like, a radical pro-Palestinian (or, as they say, "pro-Hamas") activist who wants to destroy Israel which, uhhhhhhhh

But another thread I found debunking this, by a former Trump-voting evangelical conservative turned critic of the same, gets at the heart of it

People who said AI and deepfakes would be used to mislead the right were missing how misinformation actually works. Fox News et al don't suppress information by confusing the audience with misinformation; they suppress information by never letting them see it in the first place. They know that they have a captive audience who doesn't watch non-right-wing news (unlike the left, who are constantly aware of what's going on over at Fox).

They can just never mention or show Kamala Harris' rallies, or do so only in close-up, and they can frame Trump to only show shots where a crowd has gathered & make it seem like that's the norm, and their audience just has no chance to find out the truth. They're so propagandized that they just accept that there are no other images of that Kamala Harris rally, because, well, they were told there weren't, and would the news personalities they trust really lie to them?

And if any stray bits of reality float into the bubble, well, it was just AI. You know, how they have AI these days? AI's most important role in all this isn't as a vector for misinformation, it's as a rhetorical device for claiming real images and video are misinformation. You don't have to make images full of people with weird hands if you can get people circling real people's hands in red and pointing at it to prove reality was made in a computer.

These people don't know how popular Kamala Harris is. They don't know she's polling eight points higher than Trump. They don't know Harris is leading in right-wing biased polls. They're being told she's hiring actors at rallies, that her crowd photos are generated by AI, that Trump rallies are popular and hers are desolate.

This only likely to increase as we near the election because, well, Trump '24 is a shitshow. His campaign started out less popular than '16 or even '20, he picked maybe the worst VP pick in history, and he hasn't made a single effective attack on Harris/Walz. They were banking on facing Biden, and then on a chaotic open convention, but instead everyone closed ranks around Harris, and she instantly became the most popular Democratic candidate since 2008. We are cruising towards Trump/Vance not only losing, but losing in the closest thing to a landslide that's possible in our current system.

They're already laying the groundwork for, in the likely case of defeat, playing the "she stole the election!" card. Last time it was ad-hoc, because Trump thought he'd win. This time, they're already making "all her rallies are fake, all of her supporters are AI, they've already rigged it against Trump" a key strategy, and, I have to assume, their primary strategy as it gets closer to election day and the polls get worse. They've always lived in a bubble, but now it's a bubble designed explicitly to cause another January 6th. By claiming real photos have weird hands, and must totally be AI

[zvaigzdelasas]

Hundreds of cease-fire activists on Wednesday interrupted California lawmakers’ return to the Capitol, forcing the state Assembly to adjourn for the afternoon. The protesters filled the chamber’s gallery and began chanting and singing “cease-fire now” soon after the Assembly gaveled open its first floor session of the year. They demanded lawmakers call for an end to the Israel-Hamas conflict that has killed thousands of civilians.[...]

Assembly leaders initially tried to quell the outburst but quickly recessed and walked off the floor. The protesters hung large black and red posters from the gallery overlooking the area where lawmakers sit, and at least 100 protesters also filled the Capitol rotunda outside the chambers. A number of Jewish organizations across the state were behind the effort, including Jewish Voice for Peace, If Not Now and the International Jewish anti-Zionist network, spokesperson Liv Kunins-Berkowitz told POLITICO.[...]

In November, a crowd of 1,000 pro-cease-fire protesters overwhelmed security guards and stormed the California’s Democratic Party’s convention in Sacramento, forcing party leaders to cancel events for one night. Then last month, Gov. Gavin Newsom moved an in-person tree lighting ceremony at the Capitol to a virtual format due to concerns about protests.

3 Jan 24

[the-garbanzo-annex-jr]

by Alexander Joffe

Christmas and festive celebrations and shopping were disrupted in parks, malls, stores and public venues ,such as midtown Manhattan and London, by protestors declaring “Christmas is canceled.” Assaults and arrests were reported. Protests were also held on Christmas morning outside the homes of Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and national Security Advisor Jake Sullivan. Efforts to shut down New Year’s celebrations were made in major cities.

The situation in Gaza was the ostensible motive but the actions were undertaken by pro-Palestinian groups as well as a wide array of communist and social groups including The People’s Forum and the Party for Socialism and Liberation. The support for “Palestine” given by climate change personality Greta Thunberg demonstrated the unity of these and other far left causes.

Another direct reflection of “Globalize the Intifada” protests were hundreds of bomb threats and swatting threats called in to Jewish institutions, apparently from outside the US. Violent protests were held outside of Jewish owned business in cities including Philadelphia, Chicago, Los Angeles, and New York City. Property crimes directed against Jewish owned businesses and other sites in New York City also rose 85% in December. S

Shabbat services at Temple Beth Am in Los Angeles were relocated for the first time in history after a pro-Hamas demonstration was scheduled in a park across the street.

The House of Representatives also passed a resolution condemning the October 7 attack and stating that anti-Zionism is a form of antisemitism. The measure passed 311-14 but 92 Democrats voted “present.” The pro-BDS “Squad” comprised the no votes along with Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY).

The increasingly wide distribution of Muslim communities in the US and their growing political action around the single issue of opposing Israel is a growing factor in future electoral calculations, particularly in states such as Michigan, Virginia, and New Jersey.

At the same time pro-Hamas activists have continued to target Democrats. In one incident a Michigan Democratic Party holiday event was disrupted when members of the Palestinian Youth Movement and Party for Socialism and Liberation entered the venue to harass Congresswoman Shri Thanedar (D-MI). The resulting fight sent several individuals to the hospital. Congressman Ritchie Torres (D-NY) was harassed by pro-Hamas protestors at the 92nd Street Y who shouted “Ritchie Torres, you can’t hide, we charge you with genocide.” Pro-Hamas protestors also vandalized the offices of several Democratic Congressmen. as well as the home of Rep. Adam Smith (D-WA). The willingness to attack politicians is a grave escalation in the war against Israel in the US.

[bxbatea]

From Kehlani's recent Instagram story. To eat and drink, have lunch with friends and family, mourn their dead with candles and vigils is a privilege. For me to be able to simply post this is a privilege. In our present day, the constant censorship and manipulation of media is thought to be a thing of the past or of fiction. It is not. To my knowledge, there has been constant suppression of the coverage of the mass genocide in Palestine across all social media platforms. Including here on Tumblr. Palestinians continue to be condemned, they continue to be twisted and depicted by the media as "terrorists", when that cannot be further from the truth. Their people continue to suffer at the hands of Israel everyday. Being Pro-Palestine does not equate to condoning the actions of Hamas or being anti-Semitic, which is something that cannot be stressed enough. For the past 75 years, millions of Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip have had their homes demolished, had military checks which have impeded on their freedom of movement, experienced endless bombardment on their places of residence and worship, and have witnessed and endured the inhumane slaughter of their families, neighbours and friends. Therefore, we must continue to amplify the voices of our fellow Palestinian brothers and sisters. Keep posting, keep donating, keep listening to them, keep speaking up and keep educating yourselves. Education is a privilege and a powerful tool, which in times like this, we must utilise. Do not be hypocritical, do not remain ignorant. In the words of Kwame Ture, American Political Activist: "Peace is not the answer. Liberation is the answer. Peace is the white man's word." Do not allow for them to be silenced. We are their voice. For us to lose our voice, to stop advocating, in turn means for Palestine to lose their voice. More so than ever, we must ensure their stories are heard.

[infiniteglitterfall]

Someone on Reddit made the mistake of saying, "Teach me how this conflict came about" where I could see it.

Let me teach you too.

The common perception is that Jews came out of nowhere, stole Palestinian homes and kicked Palestinians out of them, and then bombed them for 75 years, until they finally rebelled in the form of Hamas invading Israel and massacring 22 towns in one day.

The historical reality is that Jews have lived there continuously for at least 3500 years.

There are areas, like Meggido iirc, with archeological evidence of continuous habitation for 7,000 years, but Jewish culture as we recognize it today didn't develop until probably halfway through that.

Ethnic Jews are the indigenous people of this area.

Indigeneity means a group was originally there, before any colonization happened, and that it has retained a cultural connection to the land. History plus culture.

That's what Jews have: even when the diaspora became larger than the number of Jews in Israel, the yearning to return to that homeland was a daily part of Jewish prayer and ritual.

The Jewish community in Israel was crushed pretty violently by the Roman Empire in 135 CE, but it was still substantial, sometimes even the majority population there, for almost a thousand years.

The 600s CE brought the advent of Islam and the Arab Empire, expanding out from Saudi Arabia into Israel and beyond. It was largely a region where Jews were second-class citizens. But it was still WAY better than the way Christian Europe treated Jews.

From the 700s-900s, the area saw repeated civil wars, plagues, and earthquakes.

Then the Crusades came, with waves of Christians making "pilgrimages to the Holy Land" and trying to conquer it from Muslims and Jews, who they slaughtered and enslaved.

Israel became pretty well depopulated after all that. It was a very rough time to live there. (And for the curious, I'm calling it Israel because that's what it had been for centuries, until the Romans erased the name and the country.)

By the 1800s, the TOTAL population of what's now Israel and Palestine had varied from 150,000 - 275,000 for centuries. It was very rural, very sparsely populated, on top of being mostly desert.

In the 1880s, Jews started buying land and moving back to their indigenous homeland. As tends to happen, immigration brought new projects and opportunities, which led to more immigration - not only from Jews, but from the Arab world as well.

Unfortunately, there was an antisemitic minority spearheaded by Amin al-Husseini. Who was very well-connected, rich, and from a politically powerful family.

Al-Husseini had enthusiastically participated in the Armenian Genocide under the Ottoman Empire. Then the Empire fell in World War One, and the League of Nations had to figure out what to do with its land.

Mostly, if an area was essentially operating as a country (e.g. Turkey), the League of Nations let it be one. In areas that weren't ready for self-rule, it appointed France or Britain to help them get there.

In recognition of the increased Jewish population in their traditional, indigenous homeland, it declared that that homeland would again become Israel.

As in, the region was casually called Palestine because that was the lay term for "the Holy Land." It had not been a country since Israel was stamped out; only a region of a series of different empires. And the Mandate For Palestine said it was establishing "a national home of the Jewish people" there, in recognition of "the historical connection of the Jewish people with Palestine and to the grounds for reconstituting their national home in that country."

Britain was appointed to help the Arab and Jewish communities there develop systems of self-government, and then to work together to govern the region overall.

At least, that was the plan.

Al-Husseini, who was deeply antisemitic, did not like this plan.

And, extra-unfortunately, the British response to al-Husseini inciting violent anti-Jewish riots was to put him in a leadership role over Arab Palestine.

They thought it would calm him down and perhaps satisfy him.

They were very wrong.

He went on to become a huge Hitler fanboy, and then a Nazi war criminal. He co-created the Muslim Brotherhood - which Hamas is part of - with fellow fascist fanboy Hassan al-Banna.

He got Nazi Party funding for armed Muslim Brotherhood militias to attack Jews and the Brits in the late 30s, convincing Britain to agree to limit Jewish immigration at the time when it was most desperately needed.

He started using the militias again in 1947, when the United Nations voted to divide the mandated land into a Jewish homeland and a Palestinian one.

Al-Husseini wouldn't stand for a two-state solution. He was determined to tolerate no more than the subdued, small Jewish minority of second-class citizens that he remembered from his childhood.

As armed militias increasingly ran riot, the Arab middle and upper classes increasingly left. About 100,000 left the country before May 1948, when Britain was to pull out, leaving Israel and Palestine to declare their independence.

The surrounding nations didn't want war. They largely accepted the two-state solution.

But al-Husseini lobbied HARD. And by mobilizing the Muslim Brotherhood to provide "destabilizing mass demonstrations and a murderous campaign of intimidation," he got the Arab League nations to agree to invade, en masse, as soon as Britain left.

About 600,000 Arabs fled to those countries during the ensuing war.

Jews couldn't seek refuge there; in fact, most of those countries either exiled their Jews directly, confiscating their property first, or else made Jewish life unlivable and exploited them for underpaid or slave labor for years first.

By the time the smoke cleared and a peace treaty was signed, most of the Arab Palestinian community had fled; there was no Arab Palestinian leadership; many of the refugees' homes and businesses had left had been destroyed in the war; and Israel had been flooded with nearly a million refugees from the Arab League countries and the Holocaust - even more people than had fled the war.

That was the Nakba. The one that gets portrayed as "750,000 Palestinians fled or were expelled!" in the hope that you'll assume they were expelled en masse, their beautiful intact homes all stolen.

Egypt had taken what's now the Gaza Strip in that war, and Jordan took what's now the West Bank - expelling or killing all the Jews in it first.

(Ironically, Jordan was originally supposed to be part of Israel. Britain, inexplicably, cut off what would have been 75% of its land to create Jordan.

Even more inexplicably, nobody ever talks about it. I've never seen anyone complain that Jordan was stolen from Palestinians. Possibly because Jordan is also the only country that gave Palestinian refugees full citizenship, and it's about half Palestinian now.

Israel is nearly 25% Arab Palestinians with full citizenship and equal rights, so it's not all that different -- but the fundamental difference of living in a country where the majority is Jewish, not Muslim, probably runs pretty deep.)

Anyway: that's why Palestine is Gaza and the West Bank, rather than being some contiguous chunk of land. Or being the land set aside by the U.N. in 1947.

Because Arab countries took that land in 1948, and treated them as essentially separate for 20 years.

Israel got them back, along with the Golan Heights and the Sinai Peninsula, in the next war: 1967, when Egypt committed an act of war by taking control of the waterways and barring Israel from them. It gave the Sinai back to Egypt as part of the 1979 peace accords between Egypt and Israel.

Israel tried to give back the Gaza Strip at the same time. Egypt refused.

Palestine finally declared independence in 1988.

But Hamas formed at about the same time. Probably in response, in fact. Hamas is fundamentally opposed to peace negotiations with Israel.

Again: Hamas is part of a group founded by Nazis.

Hamas has its own charter. It explains that Jews are "the enemy," because they control the drug trade, have been behind every major war, control the media, control the United Nations, etc. Basic Nazi rhetoric.

It has gotten adept at masking that rhetoric for the West. But to friendlier audiences, its leaders have consistently said things like, "People of Jerusalem, we want you to cut off the heads of the Jews with knives. With your hand, cut their artery from here. A knife costs five shekels.  Buy a knife, sharpen it, put it there, and just cut off [their heads]. It costs just five shekels."

(Palestinians were outraged by this speech. Palestinians, by and large, absolutely loathe Hamas.

It's just that it's not the same to say that to locals, as it is to say it where major global powers who oppose this crap can hear you.)

Hamas has stated from the beginning that its mission is to violently destroy Israel and take over the land.

It has received $100M in military funding annually, from Iran, for several years. Because Iran has been building a network of fascist, antisemitic groups across the Middle East, in a blatant attempt to control more and more of it: Hezbollah in Lebanon. The Houthis in Yemen.

Iran has been run by a very far-right, deeply antisemitic dictatorship for decades now, which pretty openly wants to take down both Israel and the U.S.

Last year, Iran increased Hamas's funding to $350M.

The "proof of concept" invasion of Israel that Hamas pulled off on October 7th more than justifies a much bigger investment.

Hamas has publicly stated its intention to attack "again and again and again," until Israel has been violently destroyed.

That is how this conflict came about.

A Nazi group seized power in Gaza in 2007 by violently kicking the Palestinian government out, and began running it as a dictatorship, using it to build money and power in preparations for exactly this.

And people find it shockingly easy to believe its own hype about being "the Palestinian resistance."

As well as its propaganda that Israel is not actually targeting Hamas: it's just using a literal Nazi invasion and massacre as an excuse to randomly commit genocide of the fraction of Palestine it physically left 20 years ago.

Despite the fact that Palestinians in Gaza have been protesting HAMAS throughout the war.

[sayruq]

Israeli gov-led Zoom calls, WhatsApp chat logs, and other docs provide a window into the massive effort to shape online discourse and silence pro-Palestinian voices.

As the Israel-Hamas war began to heat up in late October, Courtney Carey, a Dublin-based employee of the Israeli website building company Wix, posted the Irish words “SAOIRSE DON PHALAISTIN” -- “Freedom for Palestine” -- on her LinkedIn page. Within 24 hours of Carey’s LinkedIn post appearing, Alon Ozer, a Miami-based investor, took a screenshot of the post and shared it with a WhatsApp group of more than 300 like-minded investors, tech executives, activists, and at least one senior Israeli government official. Ozer took care to note that Carey worked for Wix. Oded Hermoni, a tech journalist-turned-venture capitalist, piped up to assure everyone that Batsheva Moshe, Wix’s general manager for Israel and a member of the group chat, had been “on it since Sat[urday] night.” Moshe then chimed in to assure her peers that the issue with Carey had been “taken care of since it was published.” “I believe there will be an announcement soon re our reaction,” she added. Wix terminated Carey the following day.

Read the whole article as it's an investigation into Israel’s information war

[fairuzfan]

"Israel also secretly hires Jewish Americans as spies to work out of its Washington embassy and its consulates around the United States to covertly surveil and monitor fellow Americans, including students. Thoroughly vetted to ensure loyalty to Israel, many of those hired have spent years heavily involved in pro-Israeli activities from the time they were in college and before. Among them was Julia Reifkind, who led a pro-Israel group at the University of California at Davis before moving on to become an activist with AIPAC. After she graduated in 2016, she was hired by Israel and assigned to its embassy in Washington.

Reifkind had good preparation for her assignment. Thinking that Kleinfeld was a fellow pro-Israel activist, over dinner at Washington’s Mari Vanna restaurant she revealed that while at AIPAC she spent much of her time deceiving college students about her covert connection to the organization. “Obviously, I’m an AIPAC-trained campus activist,” she said. “When you’re lobbying on behalf of AIPAC, you don’t say AIPAC, you say, ‘I’m a pro-Israel student from UC Davis.’ And when you’re meeting with students on campus I would never say, ‘I am the AIPAC campus rep.’ I’d say, ‘My name is Julia and I’m a pro-Israel student.’”

At the embassy, Reifkind focused on developing intelligence on fellow Americans, including students on college campuses. “So nobody really knows what we’re doing,” she said. “But mainly it’s been a lot of research like monitoring BDS.”

In a different conversation, Reifkind explained: “It’s mainly gathering intel, reporting back to Israel. That’s a lot of what I do. To report back to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Ministry of Strategic Affairs, and make sure they have the right information.” Among the ways she spies on pro-Palestinian activists and Palestinian human rights supporters is with phony Facebook accounts. “I have my fake Facebook that I follow all the SJP [Students for Justice in Palestine] accounts. I have some fake names. My name is Jay Bernard or something.”

Once Reifkind collected the intelligence on her targets, she passed it on to her boss at the embassy. Then it was sent to the Ministry of Strategic Affairs and other offices over a secure encrypted system called Cables. It’s “really secure,” she said. “I don’t have access to [it] because I’m an American.… I’ve seen it, it looks really bizarre…. And then they’ll send something back and he’ll translate it and tell me what I need to do.”

Since the brutal Hamas attacks on Israeli civilians on October 7 and the Israeli invasion of Gaza, the ICC and its US-based spy networks are no doubt working overtime. But there is little likelihood of interference by the FBI—well trained to look the other way when it comes to Israel. It was a situation that even frustrated a former head of the FBI’s counterintelligence division. When I asked him why no one would talk to me about Israel’s massive espionage in the United States, he simply shook his head.

“You don’t think Israel’s a sensitive topic?” he asked, requesting that his name not be used. “So, Israel has been looked at and is being looked at and that’s all I can tell you,” he said. “But nobody’s doing anything.”

“Why not?” I asked.

“You can imagine,” is all he would say, implying high-level political involvement. I then said that I was planning to write about the topic. “I hope you do. I hope you do,” he said. Sighing, he added, “I’ve been there done that. I know it. I’ve brought cases to the Department of Justice on Israel.” Cases that were never opened."

— Israel’s War on American Student Activists by James Bamford on The Nation

[allthecanadianpolitics]

McGill University is considering its next steps to deal with the camp set up by pro-Palestinian activists on campus grounds in downtown Montreal, officials said Monday. In a statement published on its website, the university said the situation has “shifted significantly” and the number of people in the encampment has “tripled since Saturday.” University officials added “many of them, if not the majority, are not members of the McGill community.” A spokesperson for the encampment said members are calling for McGill and Concordia universities to divest from Israel-connected funds. They demand the academic institutions cut financial ties with Israel in light of the ongoing conflict in Gaza between Israel and Hamas. Signs at the McGill encampment state “You are funding genocide” and “Free Gaza now” and describe the demonstrators as standing in solidarity with the Palestinian cause and people in Gaza.

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