#pro palestinian ≠ antisemitism

[odinsblog]

WASHINGTON, April 25 — Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) today released the following statement in response to Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu’s claim yesterday that criticism of the Israeli government’s policies is antisemitic:

“No, Mr. Netanyahu. It is not antisemitic or pro-Hamas to point out that in a little over six months your extremist government has killed 34,000 Palestinians and wounded more than 77,000 – seventy percent of whom are women and children.

It is not antisemitic to point out that your bombing has completely destroyed more than 221,000 housing units in Gaza, leaving more than one million people homeless – almost half the population.

It is not antisemitic to note that your government has obliterated Gaza’s civilian infrastructure – electricity, water, and sewage.

It is not antisemitic to realize that your government has annihilated Gaza’s health care system, knocking 26 hospitals out of service and killing more than 400 health care workers.

It is not antisemitic to condemn your government’s destruction of all of Gaza’s 12 universities and 56 of its schools, with hundreds more damaged, leaving 625,000 students with no education.

It is not antisemitic to agree with virtually every humanitarian organization in saying that your government, in violation of American law, has unreasonably blocked humanitarian aid coming into Gaza, creating the conditions in which hundreds of thousands of children face malnutrition and famine.

Mr. Netanyahu. Antisemitism is a vile and disgusting form of bigotry that has done unspeakable harm to many millions of people. But, please, do not insult the intelligence of the American people by attempting to distract us from the immoral and illegal war policies of your extremist and racist government. Do not use antisemitism to deflect attention from the criminal indictment you are facing in the Israeli courts. It is not antisemitic to hold you accountable for your actions.”

—Bernie Sanders

[ne0n-and-garbage]

Clarification on a common misconception about Israel.

(pasted from my reboot of an antisemite’s post because this needs to be said)

Israel is by definition NOT an ethnostate.

The definition of ethnostate is:

"a sovereign state of which citizenship is restricted to members of a particular racial or ethnic group."

As of 2022, the religious population makeup of Israel is:

"Jewish 73.5%, Muslim 18.1%, Christian 1.9%, Druze 1.6%, other 4.9%"

Clearly, citizenship and residency is not denied based on religion. How about race?

"73.2% (about 7,208,000 people) are Jews. 21.1% (around 2,080,000 people) are Israeli citizens classified as Arab, some identifying as Palestinian, and including Druze, Circassians, all other Muslims, Christian Arabs, Armenians (which Israel considers "Arab") An additional 5.7% (roughly 554,000 people) are classified as "others". (various ethnic/racial backgrounds.)

A quick google search shows that while Jews are the majority, many people of different races reside in Israel. White Christians are the majority in America and many European countries, and yet I have never heard them called ethnostates. Is this only because Jews are the majority? Hmmmm....

In contrast, Gaza WOULD fit the definition of an ethnostate. It has specific ethnic requirements not only to gain citizenship, but also to even enter the territory legally.

[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.

[mask131]

This morning, it was discovered that, during the night, two dozen of red handprints have been painted on the Wall of the Justs.

The Wall of the Justs is part of the Parisian Memorial of the Shoah: it is the list of the names of nearly four thousand men and women who helped protect and save Jews during the Occupation of France by the Nazis.

Tell me again how the red handprint is "definitively not used by antisemites or for antisemitic purposes"? And tell me, please, how defacing this memorial (which is not even to the memory of Jews, but to the memory of those that stood up against the Nazis) will help Palestine in any way?

... Maybe you can't, because this is proof that, for some person, it is not about Palestine at all. They don't care about bringing food or medical help to Gaza. They just see an opportunity to express their own hate.

Everybody has been saying this, and I will concur: most of these people are either antisemites, or uneducated ignorants who are so short-sighted they don't even realize how bad their own actions look, and thus soil the very cause they want to defend.

At best, they wanted to say something about how pro-Palestinians are "the Resistance" but failed monstrously at carrying the message because they DEFACED A SHOAH MEMORIAL. At worst, they wanted us to understand what is the only thing to be read here: "These people who saved the Jews in World War II have blood on their hands now." And this is such a vile and nauseating message.

[explorations-in-judaism]

"If only you weren't such bad jews we wouldn't have had to genocide you!"

[jewreallythinkthat]

For those who missed it, a Jewish man was threatened with arrest in London this weekend for being "openly Jewish" (that's a quote form the policeman who stopped him) while being near a pro-palestinian protest. He was then abused and harassed by protestors. The policeman said that the man's presence could lead to a "breach of the peace"

The police proceeded to release the most victim blamey apology I've ever seen - one so bad that they then had to withdraw it and issue a second apology

The original apology talks about a "new trend of those opposed to the main protests appearing alongside the route to express their views", and "knowing their presence is provocative".

The guy the police stopped was literally walking in London post shul. Not on a counter demonstration, not on a free the hostages demo, or a pro Israel demo. He was just there, and wearing a kippah.

Like I'm sorry but saying Jews being obviously Jewish is causing a breach of the peace when near a pro-palestinian protest makes it very clear that the police know that these are not actually peaceful.

I'm sure a huge number of people on these demos are not actually antisemites and have no intention to harm Jews, however herd mentality can make even the most reasonable person into a bigot, and frankly if people are afraid to stand against the antisemites, it shows that they now how dangerous the people around them are - so WHY are they still there?

[pjharvey-moved]

it’s mostly very funny to me how the “stop posting and log off and do REAL ACTIVISM” crowd, when faced with the reality that leftists of the ilk they find annoying (whether for valid reasons or not) ARE doing real activism and risking getting expelled from their schools, fired from their jobs, and arrested for it, are like oh actually they’re just LARPing as activists because they want to piss off their parents. and theyre saying this in online posts, instead of logging off and doing any real activism, because i guess that advice doesn’t apply to themselves

[the-catboy-minyan]

you can be both pro-Israel and pro-Palestine, just sayin'

edit:

fucking read the tags before you reblog a Hamas apologist saying "you can't be both pro the oppressor and pro the oppressed". I'm talking about the countries, not their governments.

[odinsblog]

There have already been more than 11,000 men, women and children—noncombatant civilian—Palestinians killed, and this is the pro-Israel reaction for just wanting a ceasefire??

You can call them zionists or whatever (and that would not necessarily be wrong), but for me, in sO many ways, they track as your garden variety, “the cruelty is the point,” hateful, racist, rightwing Republican.

[floralcavern]

From river to sea is when the Jews will be wiped away clean. Is that what you really want? Because the destruction of Israel, the only safe haven for Jews, a country that was created because Jews had no where safe to live, will lead to mass genocide. But it seems you only care about it when it’s one side. But you don’t actually care about said side because you’re also supporting/waving away the people who’ve oppressed them for years.

[lostinsidelostoutside]

Well this throws out the term " the Palestinians didn't know "huh ?

Disgusting !!

[ne0n-and-garbage]

🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥 🇮🇱⭐️✨FUCK HAMAS✨⭐️🇮🇱🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥

[proudzionist]

Source : this modern Jew on Instagram

[hazel2468]

It’s one fucking AM and I’m tired and if I see you saying “never again” in order to prop up the blatantly antisemitic bullshit happening in the American “pro-Palestine” camp then you’re getting fucking blocked.

“Never again” isn’t some catch all slogan you fucking goyim get to use to feel good about yourselves. It’s not something you can slap onto everything. It is NOT something you use as a gotcha against Jews.

“Never again” is for us. “Never again” means that never again will we Jews be caught unawares by the hatred of racist goyim again. “Never again” is right fucking now because we see you. We are calling you on it. We are not watching silently hoping that this time you won’t cheer for our blood. Those days of good grace are over. And after everything I’ve seen?

Never again will I fucking trust any of you.

[chaiaurchaandni]

how the zionist entity bastardizes the star of david

after destroying a park in gaza, israeli tanks carve a star of david into the ground

this is not new. previously, israeli forces seared the star of david on the face of a palestinian civilian:

reminds me of isis terrorists killing muslims in syria according to 'halal' guidelines. in both cases, a brutal cult (zionists/salafi extremists) uses religion (judaism/islam) as an excuse for violence in a way that seems to mock & disrespect the very religion they claim to follow

[pjharvey-moved]

i don’t think acknowledging that antisemitism exists in leftist spaces, which include antizionist spaces (tbh especially so because the fact that israel is associated with jewish people worldwide is fodder for antisemites who are also leftists) defeats the point of antizionism, any more than acknowledging that leftist spaces are often immensely sexist, ableist, anti-addict, and dismissive of indigenous voices makes you a spineless liberal.