#standing together

[notaplaceofhonour]

Not At Odds

Ceasefire Now + Bring Them Home Now

Jewish & Palestinian safety & freedom are not at odds with each other; they are interconnected. These things can must coexist.

[tributary]

i am once again asking you to support standing together

[fairuzfan]

hey med! i remember you posted about standing together a while ago and i just saw the latest BDS alert.

They’re calling for an official boycott of the organisation.

“By trying to paint Israel as a tolerant, diverse, and normal state, and focusing on “hatred” rather than oppression as the problem, this organization is intellectually dishonest and outright complicit. It is serving a key role in Israel’s international propaganda strategy at this time.”

LOL NO WAYYYYYY BDS IS ON MY SIDEEEE

So yeah, if you need more proof to show standing together is not great and kinda just offensive...

[xyriath]

but seriously if you are at all blogging about the i/p conflict you NEED to read that standing together article from that post i just reblogged. please. please please please please please. these are the people who are actually doing something about freeing palestine and have been for years. And here's the thing:

IF YOU WANT PEACE IN ISRAEL, IN PALESTINE, THESE ARE THE PEOPLE IT'S GOING TO COME FROM.

Because yeah. The way this site is spreading around uncritical posts is a huge issue (and a reason I haven't been around since October). Standing Together is doing a hell of a lot more than blogging about it. They're on the ground putting in the work. Nine days before the October 7 attack, they were in Tel Aviv publicly protesting about the systematic oppression of Arabs (not just Palestinians) in Israel.

"The global left has to be synced with what we need." Trust me, the right is. Boy HOWDY is the right synced. I have gotten more support about my Judaism from the far right than the left and it's??? kinda fucked up??? Someone who worked for Pat Robertson should not feel safer than someone dedicated to activism, but here we are. I can feel how easy it would be to be radicalized towards the right, and I'm actively fighting against it. Now imagine that multiplied by millions of people, plenty of whom don't have the same desire to do so, or feel like they don't have the luxury of safety to do so.

Seeing Hamas being portrayed as sympathetic and talked about like they had a right to commit all of the atrocities that they have is making me lose my MIND. They're a group run by corrupt billionaires who actively started this conflict with the intent of silencing the Palestinian people who have been protesting their tyranny. They have been siphoning money from Palestinians for years and this entire attack is them deliberately throwing Palestinians into the path of slaughter to distract from that fact, the same way that Netanyahu absolutely took advantage of the threat and tragedy to try and get himself off the hook for his own corruption.

Also check out the google doc linked in the article. It's not just a good way to learn how to communicate, but a very good resource for finding out if something you're sharing is worthwhile. In fact, it does a really god job of breaking down why I've felt so uncomfortable about a bunch of the posts on my dash. Some excerpts:

This got way longer than I had intended, but hopefully does its job. Go read the article and, yes, if you need to, reevaluate your activism. Because if it's not what people involved actually want or need, then it's just for you. And that's kinda fucked up.

[bonyassfish]

“Standing Together normalizes the occupation!!”

??????

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?????

“They’re too naive!!”

[curated-tiktok]

TikTok, OP: Ayandastood (she/her), posted: 2023 November 9

[Video description

visual description: A black woman with braided hair, wearing golden rings, an orange dress and AirPods sitting on a couch speaking to the camera. In the background there's a white wall.

transcript: Something I find so fascinating is we keep each other safe. Like, collective safety is a thing, right? So, the more people that talk about Palestine the more safe it becomes to talk about palestine, because the less they can single us out.

But some people have such an individualistic understanding of safety that they're like I'm just gonna protect myself. They're not like oo I'm gonna protect the collective by adding to the voice to the collective so the collective cannot be divided and conquered, you know what I mean?

so as long as we are more difficult to single out, they cannot attack us.

so when you worry about your safety you are playing into the individualistic paradigm that they want you to play into.

But just know, safety was never something you were supposed to give yourself. It was something that we as a collective were ment to give to each other. Some people sleep while others stay awake. We have always as a species protected each other. It is our survival and it is no different, ok?, over here.

Love you, bye.

video description end]

caption:

also I know there are real dangers involved. I also feel this needed to be said. I didnt get into this but we keep each other safe primarily means we do what we can to keep ppl suffering genocide safe #freepalestine 🇵🇸❤️#freecongo🇨🇩 #freesudan🇸🇩❤️

[hilacopter]

not to brag or anything but I'm coming at you live right from the Standing Together protest

[matan4il]

what do you, as an Israeli, think of Standing Together? asking entirely in good faith because I see things supporting them a lot, but it's always from American Jews and (no offense to us), I don't totally trust that we're informed enough to know what we're talking about and what their perspective and usefulness truly is in the way that someone who actually lives there would. so many orgs are untrustworthy or covertly antisemitic and it made me curious for your perspective. thank you for everything. <3

Hi Nonnie!

Sorry it took me a moment to reply, but I hope my answer can still help you!

As an idea, Standing Together is a movement that I should have been all for. They are pro-coexistence, and so am I. There's no doubt in my mind that Jews aren't going anywhere, and neither are Arabs, and we are all better off working together for a good future for all. Supposedly, that's ST's message, so they absolutely should be an organization that I would be all for.

BUT from everything I've experienced, the narrative that they adopted is way more one-sided than their official stance, they're closer to being anti-Israel than balanced, which makes them problematic for me. Especially when you look at the individual actions and statements of many of this movement's leaders, it's evident that coexistence to them comes at the expense of historical facts, as well as certain Jewish rights. Obviously, the leaders' personal positions influence the movement's stance and actions.

For example, in this interview from Nov 2023, a Jewish leader of the movement falsely calls Israel's 2014 operation in Gaza against Hamas, "a war against Gaza and its people" (brief summary: Hamas kidnapped and murdered three Jewish teenagers in Judea and Samaria, Israel launched Operation Brother's Keeper during which it arrested some of Hamas' terrorists in that area looking for intel on where those 3 kids were and what happened to them, Hamas fired rockets from Gaza at Israel to get its terrorists released and used terror tunnels, including ones that crossed the border from Gaza into Israel, to kill and kidnap our people. That's what Israel ended up fighting against in Operation Protective Edge), while an Arab leader of ST defines their way as one which rejects "maintaining violent military control over millions of people," but says nothing against the terrorism that's used against millions of Israelis and Jews.

In terms of the recent war, since Oct 7 they have come out calling for a ceasefire now very early on in the war (I can't remember when they started it, but I know by Dec 7, 2023 they'd already put out a vid calling to stop the war, when really the ground operation only started about a month earlier, before it could possibly achieve anything), meaning this call was undermining Israel's right (and duty!) to defend its citizens, and asking us to surrender our goals of returning all the hostages and destroying Hamas' rule (only the latter can prevent Hamas from fulfilling its promise to carry out more massacres of the type that started this war, and has claimed so many lives on both sides). Another thing you can see in that vid is ST participating in spreading the false narrative that Israel is intentionally starving the Gazans (you can see the same thing in this poster, which says in Hebrew, "Thou shalt not starve." It's a poster for humanitarian aid they were supposedly bringing into Gaza, as if the IDF would ever let anyone bring anything they want unchecked into a war zone, or as if the amount of aid a few Israeli cars could bring is more than the hundreds of trucks Israel has been allowing in, checked. ST's just posturing and spreading an anti-Israel libel). Helping to spread a libel against one side is NOT being pro-coexistence. Imagine if they were spreading a libel that all Gazans are Hamas terrorists, and took part in the massacre! I think it's clear that, even if it's not simple to tell them apart, there are people in Gaza who are complicit, and people who are uninvolved and innocent. So if ST were spreading such a libel against Gazans, I'd oppose them. I am not going to do less when ST is spreading a libel against my own people.

I hope one day they correct course, but I can't currently support them. Give me REAL solidarity between Jews and Arabs, which sees and recognizes the humanity of both, not a repeat of the de-humanization of Jews, and a surrender of Jewish rights to an anti-Jewish narrative. That's not real peace, it's not real coexistence, it's a return to the way that we Jews have had to live for centuries in exile: always dependent on the good will (or lack of it) of the majority under whose will we lived, forced to bend ourselves, our rights, our dignity, too often even our very lives, to our subjugators, in the hope (and without any guarantees) that they will show us some kindness.

Many of the movement's leaders have not only expressed themselves in a way that reflects an acceptance of the anti-Israeli narrative, and took one-sided positions I can't agree with, they also acted in ways that have left me feeling quite unsafe.

For example, one of ST's founders, Yeela Raanan, joined and supported the violent Palestinian riots on Israel's border with Gaza, organized by Hamas, meant to breach the border fence, which started in 2018. Today we know these riots were a part of Hamas' preparations for the Oct 7, 2023 massacre, as they were getting the IDF used to them coming closer and closer to the fence. TBH, those of us listening to the statements of Hamas' leaders, we didn't need to wait for the border to be breached in order to know that it would be a bloodbath if they succeed. Sinwar's promise that they will reap out the hearts of Israelis with spoons from our chests was enough. Also, the repeated use during these riots of flags and kites with swastikas was pretty telling. So yeah, I can't trust anyone who supported that.

The movement is also financially supported in part by funds, such as the New Israel Fund, which finances a lot of good causes, but also many anti-Israel ones, and the German fund Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung, which supports the antisemitic BDS movement (it's antisemitic first of all because one of its stated goals is to put an end to Israel as a Jewish state, another reason is their use of antisemitic tropes in characterizing the Jewish state).

The ironic thing is that, despite how imbalanced against Israel ST is, it was still the so-called pro-Palestinians who actually started a campaign to boycott the organization. Not because of anything specific ST said or did. It was simply for being an Israeli organization, showing the diversity of Israeli society, which is apparently bad 'coz it "normalizes" Israel's existence. That shows you the anti-Israel nature of this opposition, that no amount of willingness to cooperate with the de-humanization of Jews and erasure of our rights will ever be enough for people whose real motivation is antisemitism, that wishes to see an end to the Jewish state.

I hope this helps, Nonnie! Once more, my apologies for how long it's taken me to reply. Be well!

(for all of my updates and ask replies regarding Israel, click here)

[starlightomatic]

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Alon-Lee Green אלון-לי גרין (@alonlee)

Settlers in the West Bank had been gathering at the Tarqumiyah checkpoint and spilling and destroying food from aid trucks headed to Gaza. An organization called Standing Together, which is led by Jewish and Palestinian citizens of Israel and has spent the last eight months organizing protests against the war, created an action initiative called the Humanitarian Guard that for the past two weeks has physically blocked the settlers from accessing the trucks. This week the settlers announced they are standing down.

[screamingfromuz]

Hello Folks,

Recently their has been a lot of discussion surrounding the decision of the BDS movement to call for a boycott of Standing Together. Today we released a statement composed by members of the Palestinian Leadership of the movement. I welcome everyone to read the statement and share with others. The decision by BDS was disappointing to many of us, but this is the time to reaffirm our values: our commitment to changing Israeli society, building Jewish-Arab solidarity, stopping the war, and ending the occupation.

Here is the statement on Twitter:

https://x.com/omdimbeyachad/status/1752394061414109315?s=20

“We are proud to organize Palestinians and Jews together, we stand by our movement, our strategy, and our theory of change, and we will continue to organize until we are all equal and free.”

Also on Instagram:

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Standing Together עומדים ביחד نقف معًا (@standing.together.english)

[notaplaceofhonour]

so, uh… my stance on Standing Together just went from “some of the things the leadership says on their personal accounts is a bit one-sided but i agree with the stated goals of standing together, so it’s fine I guess” to… not that.

The Axis of Resistance is Hezbollah, Hamas, the Houthis, and Assad’s regime.

Alon-Lee Green is co-director of Standing Together.

[rotzaprachim]

scripts we're using to canvas for a bilateral ceasefire. Please CALL NOW and spread.

Hello [senator/representative blank  ], I am [.   ], a [ stuedent at blank/job] and [location voter, and I am calling to demand that senator [schatz/hirono] do anything in their power to stand for a bilateral ceasefire between the State of Israel and Hamas and for immediate political negotiations.

I am demanding that you call for a complete end to the military assault of Gaza, where tens of thousands of civilians have been killed and the United Nations world food program estimates that hundreds of thousands of people are on the brink of starvation.

I also demand that you call for an immediate hostage deal that would put pressure on the state of Israel to negotiate for the release of the hostages so that the the children, young women, and grandparents who have been held by a brutal terror organization for over six months can return home to their families.

There is no choice. We must let Gaza live, AND bring the hostages home. 

    Furthermore I am demanding that you do anything in your political power to halt the invasion of Rafah and to halt or condition arms transfers to the state of Israel until a political agreement is met.

I am demanding that you support the two state solution through the highest possible level of recognition of the state of Palestine.

   finally i am demanding an increase in the transfer of essential humanitarian aid into Gaza. 

      Neither the Children of Palestine or Israel have any time left to waste. Please, in the name of the people of [YOUR LOCATION], stand for peace.

Thank you very much [Senator or representatives name  ] This is the end of my message. 

[fairuzfan]

Damn BM is going off on Standing Together huh

[unbidden-yidden-deactivated20240]

Hey so uhhh I guess the Standing Together peace rally that was set for tonight got canceled by the police last minute??

Anyway, if you're interested in helping them build an even bigger rally next week, it's on:

[bonyassfish]

I do think that you should mostly still listen to BDS as far as companies to boycott go, because companies like Re/Max and AXA directly profit from the occupation. The movement in general also has widespread support among Palestinians which should not be ignored. Boycotts, divestment, and sanctions are effective non-violent methods of ending colonial violence.

However, I find what BDS in general defines as “normalization” to be flighty at best and harmful at worst. BDS actively dismissing joint Israeli-Palestinian peace activist groups like OneVoice and Standing Together serves what purpose exactly?

The arguments I’ve seen against these groups range from “they support a two state solution” to “they don’t acknowledge the reality of the power imbalance between Israel and Palestine”. The first argument is true at times, but a lot of people are looking at solutions based on a more practical view rather than what is ideal or even fair. Personally, I’m in support of a single binational secular state with equality for all citizens and proportional representation in government, but that’s just me. I understand why so many people see the two state solution as more viable, though.

As for the second accusation, I don’t think it’s true. I do think that these groups are willing to acknowledge the violence done by Hamas, for example, and the losses suffered by Israelis, which maybe is what makes people annoyed. But it’s not a zero sum game. It’s a fact that innocent civilians have been kidnapped and murdered by Hamas. It’s also a fact that the IDF is an occupying colonial force with extensive and sophisticated weaponry and a large budget, while Hamas is a comparatively small militia.

The other argument I see is that these groups are too naive, that they don’t see reality. But I think it’s the opposite; I don’t think anyone who’s actually lived through this violence can be seen as naive. I think it’s a genuine recognition that this cannot last forever, that neither Jews nor Palestinians will leave, and therefore the only thing to do is to figure out a way to coexist peacefully.

It would be one thing if BDS said “we are ideologically opposed to these groups and choose not to actively support them”. But they and their supporters have made them out to be like covert liberal Zionists who are trying to trick activists. It’s absurd, these groups are pretty transparent and open about their goals and ideology.

I’m not saying you have to support Standing Together, or even agree with them. But to dismiss them completely is foolish and, in my opinion, counterproductive.

[biggsodorcitystories]

I don't live in the US, but a lot of people who I admire and/or love do, and I am absolutely devastated for you.

Unfortunately, the cards have fallen, and the political climate for the next four years has been set. There's nothing that can be done now, but there are things that you can do to help you get through this presidency.

First of all, reach out to your network. Your country may have let you down, but you still have people in your corner. Establishing your support network is an absolute must.

Secondly, do not let yourself get angry and upset in public. There is a small but vocal part of the community who want you to get angry and reactive so that they can use it against you. Not doing this will do them more damage than anything you could say or do.

While you're doing this, listen to people. There's going to be a lot of 'crowing' for the next few months, and some of this will come from people who don't realise that the choices they made in this election might have consequences.

If you are in a financial position to do so, do not buy from businesses or sellers who openly celebrate this election result. Take your business elsewhere wherever you can. Don't tell them you're doing it. Just stop buying from them or engaging with their content. If you're not good enough for them, neither is your money or attention. Those are the things that will hurt them more.

Finally, remember this;

You are wanted

You are valued

You are loved

You are survivors

You are going to get through this!

Four years will pass quicker than you think, and things WILL get better. I want to see all of you come out at the other end of this, no matter how much or little we have interacted, or even if we haven't seen eye to eye before. None of that matters, but you do.