#the ceasefire is meaningless

[news4dzhozhar]

Because the United Nations (like the ICJ) is toothless and requires for countries to police themselves and abide by the decisions passed (and international law), Israel is simply refusing to acknowledge the ceasefire. The video above was shot last night (March 26th). Considering the ceasefire was to only be 2 weeks long it really shows the belligerence and bloodlust on the part of Israel. It also reaffirms that Netanyahu and the IOF don't give a damn about hostages as the agreement would have seen them ALL released.

[cuties-in-codices]

one year of ongoing genocide against palestinians and the brandenburg gate in berlin is being lit with the israeli flag while chancellor scholz reaffirms german solidarity with israel

[lilgynt]

everytime i see a huge donation for palestine i get upset bc like great energy NOTHING is reaching gaza it’s being blocked off ur throwing money at NOTHING

[librarycards]

Writers who try to do this work are told that our words don’t mat­ter. When we demand a ceasefire and an end to occupation, we are told that those words are meaningless, that they do not prompt action, and that they cause tremendous injury (as in, to demand a ceasefire or to demand that the genocide in Gaza end is to cause injury and not to demand the cessation of injury). To name a per­son, institution, state, or a set of acts as racist or anti-Palestinian or antiblack is to cause injury. It is not the racism that injures, it is not the bullets and bombs that injure, it is the words that seek to name the injury—that name a murderous structure like apartheid or settler colonialism—that cause injury.

Meaning is in crisis. And we are embroiled, everywhere, in contests over meaning—which are also contests of power, contests over living. And dying.

When Anne Boyer resigned as poetry editor of The New York Times Magazine in November 2023, she wrote on her Substack,

Because our status quo is self-expression, sometimes the most effective mode of protest for artists is to refuse. I can’t write about poetry amidst the “reasonable” tones of those who aim to acclimatize us to this unreasonable suffering. No more ghoulish euphemisms. No more verbally sanitized hellscapes. No more warmongering lies. If this resignation leaves a hole in the news the size of poetry, then that is the true shape of the present.

Christina Sharpe, The Shapes of Grief: Witnessing the Unbearable

[komsomolka]

The Abandon Biden campaign that for months worked in key swing states to turn voters away from US President Joe Biden over his unwavering support for Israel’s war on Gaza has officially relaunched its movement with a new aim: Abandon Kamala Harris. [...]

"In terms of electoral strategy, at the very minimum, we ask the American people to make sure that they never vote for the genocide or Kamala Harris," Abdel Salam said. [...]

"There really is no focus on what has been happening in Gaza beyond meaningless platitudes. Just alone [Harris] saying Israel has the right to defend itself after 10, 11 months of what we can see is by default an endorsement of the genocide in Gaza," Hudhayfah Ahmad, the campaign's communications director, told MEE. "When you put it in that context, you start to see exactly what kind of candidate Kamala Harris is. I genuinely believe that she has not spoken in any meaningful way about Gaza because she believes she can win without addressing it." [...]

"The closer we get to November, the clearer we will see for who genocide is actually a red line and who is going to prioritise short-term interests over morals and values and ethos," Ahmad said.

[zvaigzdelasas]

What will cause a change in Western policy is Israeli military failure. That is why the Biden administration has devoted more energy to compelling Israel to formulate attainable objectives than it has counseled the restoration of fuel and water to Gaza’s hospitals.

To give a prominent recent example in this regard, in 2006, U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice ecstatically welcomed Israel’s war against Lebanon as the “birth pangs of a new Middle East.” Confident that Israel was pulverizing Hezbollah, the U.S. imperiously dismissed efforts to achieve a cessation of hostilities. Yet, as soon as Israeli armored columns and ground forces faced slaughter when they attempted to advance into southern Lebanon, the U.S. immediately changed its tune and beseeched the UN Security Council to adopt a ceasefire resolution.

Similarly, in 1982, the U.S. gave Israel a free hand to eradicate the PLO in Lebanon. Once it became clear it lacked the capacity to occupy West Beirut, the Reagan administration sent Philip Habib to negotiate an agreement that preserved the PLO. In other words, so long as the U.S. and other Western governments reject a Gaza truce and focus on meaningless obscenities like “humanitarian pauses,” it means they still believe Israel will or can succeed. If they reverse their position, you can take all the homilies about civilian suffering motivating their new position with a grain of salt. Window dressing. It means they have concluded Israel has failed.

An alternative scenario would be that Western governments have concluded that their and Israel’s conduct is producing a significant threat to their own interests and that it’s time to wind down the clock.

12 Nov 23

[navree]

You keep saying refusing to vote for Biden on moral grounds because of Palestine is ineffective because Trump would be worse, but that really isn't the point. Largely (with the exception of a few extremists and a contingency of people who wouldn't have voted anyways) the philosophy of a movement that has people withhold their vote is to force a significant policy change that wouldn't have changed otherwise. Its a form of protest. I understand from your perspective, election-focused and pragmatic, it is a threat to whoever is running, but if Biden had wanted the votes being withheld he would have capitulated.

Not that this isn't a moot point since he's out, but whatever.

See, this is intensely fucking dumb.

"force a significant policy change" it would not. One, because Biden is the president of the United States, and Israel is not one of those states. Short of sending the CIA to, idk, assassinate Netanyahu in his bed, which most of these people would be against I think because of how much they bitch and moan about US foreign policy at any given opportunity, he cannot actually make an independent foreign power do what he wants and what is electorally convenient for him. Like, I'm very sure Biden would love it if Netanyahu and his partisans stopped acting like fucking freaks for five minutes, if only so that it would stop being a PR nightmare for him. But that's not happening, because he cannot control what Netanyahu does. He could vastly reduce the support the US is providing Israel, and in my view he should, but that's not going to stop what Netanyahu and the Israeli government is doing. Because, I hate to break it to you, but the reason they're carpetbombing Gaza is because they want to be carpetbombing Gaza, and even without US aid they will continue to do it, even it just means with older and less effective weapons. Ultimately, the change that leads to a ceasefire and an end to the war is going to come from the actual parties involved, not Joe Biden.

Two, you've already gotten the significant policy change. Biden has, on multiple occasions now, come out in favor a ceasefire. He has actively been working, along with the Qatari government, to try and broker some kind of peace agreement between Israel and Hamas, but those two keep on fucking it up because they're both run by bloodthirsty psychopaths who don't care one iota about the people they're meant to be governing and only on killing whoever they want. That's been open fact for months now. And it has meant fuckall. The people doing their moral purity about how they'd never vote for Biden were still doing it, just moving the goalposts on what they wanted. First it was ceasefire, then it was 'no ceasefire until [insert impossible demand here] is given', because moving goalposts is what these people do. It's the same mentality as people who saw that Biden was doing COVID stimulus, or cancelling student loans, or reclassifying marijuana, and decided that the issue now was that he wasn't doing enough of it. It's a movement that's been consistently comprised of dogs that caught the car, and are angry that they caught the car because now they can't complain, and they don't want to actually affect meaningful change, they just want to complain because that's easier. And if that's what these people have been doing for his entire presidency, why on Earth would any reasonable person suddenly believe it's different on this one specific issue?

Three, cool you're protesting, then what? Your protest is utterly unserious and completely meaningless if it's not going to have any tangible effects, so what's the next step? You've decided to make your moral purity stance an issue that the vast majority of you learned from infographics on Instagram rather than listening to the voices involved (which is why the red triangle brigade is still a thing on Twitter), so what happens now? No political party is ever going to capitulate entirely to it, because the constituency is just too small (that "uncommitted" gambit was only getting like 10% of the vote wherever it was happening, Biden won over it as a literal write-in candidate in at least one state), so other than the compromise that's already happening, the goalpost movers are gonna withhold their votes because blah blah blah my morals. And their next step is, what? Trump gets elected. And their movement, which has no thought or serious effort put behind it or any actual attempt to provide material aid to the people actually suffering, has helped put a man who is going to be far worse for it in power. The "significant policy change" is going to be that Trump gives Netanyahu whatever he wants and he proceeds to wipe Gaza off the map. The "significant policy change" is that President "Trump Heights" actively makes things worse for the people this protest is supposed to help, as a consequence of that very protest.

It's not about me only being concerned with being "election focused" or some cold hearted bitch. It's about me, as a person who thinks what Israel has been doing since the start is godawful and deeply horrendous, realizing that this entire "protest" is not only asinine but will result in deeply negative consequences and very real harm for the people this protest is purported to be for, and being sickened by that. I live in the real world, and in the real world action speaks far louder than intent. I don't have to acknowledge that the protest wants this or that outcome or what the hypothetical impossible asks that are never going to be answered are, because I understand that they will not matter. What matters is what you get out of your protest, what gains are received, how that protest actually affects change, not the change it gives wishy washy lip service to.

[eretzyisrael]

By  Ryan Saavedra

The Hamas terrorist organization played the mainstream media on Monday by claiming that they accepted the ceasefire agreement offered by Israel.

The claim instantly went viral on social media and dominated breaking news headlines across the media landscape as the war in Gaza enters its seventh month.

Israeli officials quickly came out and disputed Hamas’ claims, noting that the Palestinian Islamic terror group agreed to things that were never offered by Israel.

Hamas agreed to a deal that it came up with Egypt that did not include any discussion with Israeli officials, The Times Of Israel reported.

Israeli officials said that Hamas lied in an effort to control the media narrative and to falsely portray Israel as the side that is refusing to negotiate even though Israel has made highly generous offers, including releasing dozens of convicted Palestinian terrorists and criminals for each hostage released by Hamas.

Israel said that proposal that Hamas accepted was “far reaching” and could never be accepted.

The White House said that they were looking over the bogus offer that Hamas accepted but would not give further comment.

Israeli officials, media figures, and advocates pushed back on news reports that falsely conveyed the situation.

“Let us all be very clear on what is happening right now: Hamas has not agreed to any known proposal for a ceasefire,” said Jerusalem Post editor-in-chief Avi Mayer. “Its announcement that it has agreed to ‘a ceasefire’ is meaningless, an obvious ploy and delay tactic meant to prevent the imminent military operation in Rafah.”

Former Israeli government spokesman Eylon Levy posted: “It looks like Hamas didn’t agree to ‘the ceasefire.’ It agreed to ‘a ceasefire,’ i.e to a proposal Israel hasn’t agreed to and maybe hasn’t even seen. That’s not how negotiations work, but it is how media manipulation works.”

“This reported Hamas approval looks like textbook deception: approving a deal that isn’t on the table in order to apply pressure on Israel to accept Hamas terms,” said former IDF spokesman Jonathan Conricus.

[news4dzhozhar]

The useless ceasefire vote by the UN the other day remains in existence on paper only as Israel just flat out refuses to abide by it. The bombing and blocking of aid, food and medicine continues. The death toll continues to rise. Children like this poor helpless baby continue to die slow & painful deaths needlessly. Meanwhile the US wrings its hands and continues to act like they have no control over what is happening.

[pocketsizedquasar-3]

you know. white liberals would be far less annoying (still deeply annoying) and far less difficult to take seriously (still deeply difficult) if they stopped lying to themselves and everyone else about what they were doing. ‘cause y’all either sound completely stupid and removed from reality at best or violently callous at worst.

(and before anyone fails their reading comprehension here, i am not telling anyone to vote or not vote or who to vote or not vote for. get off my dick.)

but no, you’re not doing “real leftism” by voting for kamala (something i have actually seen countless people say. “real leftists” would vote for kamala!!1!!1!! if you don’t vote for her ur not a “real leftist!!!!”). that’s not what that is. words mean things. you’re actually engaging in pretty textbook liberalism. it’s not “real leftism” to vote for a genocidal fascist who is actively employing genocidal fascistic policies both overseas and domestically, and who has pledged gladly to continue doing so. (again, bc this is the bad reading comprehension website, i’m not telling you if you vote for kkkamala ur not a “real leftist” (mostly because that’s meaningless); i’m saying that that act itself is not a """leftist""" action). if you feel the need to justify what you’re doing to yourself by pretending you’re doing ~real leftism~, stop.

you're not “stopping fascism” or “saving democracy” or whatever else. you’re not “stopping fascism” by voting for a fascist. you’re not “saving democracy” by voting for a fascist. if you genuinely can’t see in this current moment that kamala harris & the democrats are fascists, you are deliberately ignoring and excusing fascism as long as it’s happening to nonwhite people. it is willful, deliberate ignorance at this point and it is violent. you genuinely do not see victims of fascism unless it happens to white people.

you’re not “protecting palestinians” by voting for kamala. you’re not making their chances better or being better for them or improving their conditions. you’re not “more likely” to sway kamala on palestine; you can’t even threaten to withhold your support for her because of her wanton slaughtering of palestinians. 13 months of ongoing genocide and ongoing mass protest movements and multiple polls showing that she would literally guarantee the win in key swing states if she would just call for an arms embargo / ceasefire as part of her platform have not swayed her. she constantly, constantly reaffirms her willful, enthusiastic support of this genocide. she has said over and over again that she will not end her support for israel, that she would not have done anything differently than biden, that she has no intentions to stop sending israel arms and money so they can keep slaughtering palestinians and now lebanese. you are not “protecting” or helping palestinians by voting for her. keep their names out of your mouths.

you’re not protecting """minorities""" or """poc""" either. not when the candidate is a cop whose administration has already funneled billions of dollars into the police and the military, who is priding herself on wanting to create the most lethal military, on being tougher on the border&immigration than trump, who is happily continuing to perpetuate racist atrocity propaganda to justify the mass slaughter of palestinians, who continues to reaffirm and support the escalation of imperialism and war even elsewhere in the so-called middle east, who is gladly seeking (and securing) endorsements by racist white supremacist republicans (like dick fucking cheney. come on), whose administration has been for four years enthusiastically accelerating the climate crisis, whose campaign has been littered with examples of both their supporters and the politicians themselves being virulently racist. you’re not protecting us. you’re not helping us.

your candidate wants us dead. your candidate wants me dead. your candidate wants my people in iran dead. your candidate wants my sister peoples in palestine and in lebanon dead. your candidate is actively orchestrating their slaughter.

kamala might be better for you, white liberal american. fine. vote for her if you wish. no one is stopping you. but stop white knighting about it. stop pretending you’re doing this for anyone but yourself. stop lying to yourself and everyone else about what you’re doing. stop speaking over us the with fucking audacity that you’re somehow doing us a favor, and stop talking down to us, palestinians especially, like they are children who need to be ~explained~ the right way to save them. stick your white savior complex up your ass.

vote however you want, but stop lying about what you’re doing and who you’re protecting.

and if you want my vote too? fucking earn it.

[yuri-alexseygaybitch]

The second C*nada voted for the ceasefire in the (non-binding, meaningless) UNGA resolution I immediately got swamped with emails from all of my "representatives" who had ignored me for 2+ months talking about how measured and humanitarian and liSteNinG tO pALeStiNiAn vOicEs they are now while still managing to sneak in the "Israel's right to self-defence" line. Actual fucking spineless scum all of them.

[theivorybilledwoodpecker]

"Vote for Biden because it's clear he can be pushed to change."

No it's not. He's not calling for a ceasefire; he's calling for a pause. Which is what he's been calling for for months.

The airdrops are crumbs and meant as distractions. If he truly wanted aid to reach Gaza, he could threaten to withhold aid to Israel until Netanyahu let in trucks. He refuses to even do that because his sugar baby might refuse to suck Biden's wrinkled old cock.

The port will take months to build. Look at these pics and tell me this kid has months to spare:

All the aid in the world will not save Palestinians from the bombs Biden continues to drop on Gaza.

Yes, the moves show that Biden is scared of losing the election. But even with that fear, it's clear he's trying to take actions that loom good but are meaningless.

[gorgeousgreymatter-x]

Posting this because I have already seen people spreading misinformation about the ruling

Obviously everyone wants a ceasefire. But this is a huge step today. I'm not saying people can't mad or sad or disappointed, but it's very disingenuous to say it was "meaningless"

It wasn't any court case that stopped apartheid in SA. It was the international pressure after the fact.

[scromulus]

I try not post political shit on my tumblr because I think its kind of meaningless but I truly don’t understand how you you can be like “This politician is not far left enough for me, and therefore I will not vote, allowing her opponent, a man who will make life tangibly worse for almost every marginalized group in this country (and others) to gain ground in what very likely be a very close election”

And its not like Donald Trump is pro Gaza? The man is bros with Benjamin Netanyahu. Allowing him to win with some half assed protest vote is going to further perpetuate harm to the people in Palestine who you claim to care about. Why would you want to be complicit in that. Elect the politicians who might listen to anti-war protesters instead of tear-gasing them.

To clarify: The murder of tens of thousands of innocent children and civilians should absolutely be a key issue for voters! It’s fucked there are basically no establishment politicians who unequivocally support Palestine. But you should probably vote the ones who are willing to negotiate a ceasefire. If you want to make a tangible difference take actual meaningful direct action if you care about causes you claim to support beyond farming likes on instagram and twitter. Donate to a charity. Volunteer. Do something to meaningfully affect change other than complaining into an echo chamber.

[sapphia]

The idea that the only way you can support a gaza ceasefire is by threatening to not vote for the democrats, and that every other form of political action is meaningless compared to voting, is another example of how American democracy (all democracies really, but America leads the pack) have convinced the public that voting is the most worthwhile political action you can take and the only true way of expressing your voice in politics. It’s the “ultimate action”, voting or not voting, and any political action you take outside of that is to facilitate better voting on poll day, not a valid political action in itself.

And that’s just not true. You can never vote in your life and have more political impact than someone who votes in every election. You can take one single political action that makes more impact anything you will do for the rest of your life. And that’s not to downplay the the small political actions you take, from liking a tweet to conversing with your coworker about a politician or policy, because these are the ingredients that make up the conversation of democracy. Thats why the right have invested so much in bot accounts. “Participating” in the conversation can be more effective than a person’s vote, for the right participant (or the right number of fake participants).

The negotiations are in their final stages, and are being held up by Israel, who won’t be moved faster by US politics or pressure from US politicians. The pressure needs to be maintained on Biden and the democrats, to see this through, to advocate for actual peace and not for a situation that will set this conflict to collide again in ten years time. But it doesn’t need to be ramped up at this point. There is very little, if not nothing, that democrats threatening not to vote for Kamala can realistically do, except convince people not to vote for Kamala.

So carry on doing that if you want, I guess. If you actually cared about Palestine you would probably be more concerned with the terms of the ceasefire, the rhetoric around that and how it leads to shape the solution that will be forced on the region in exchange for peace, and the aid and protections they will need to rebuild free from the tyranny of Israel.

But scuppering an election is a fun side project I guess. As long as you feel you’re doing something to help, that’s what’s important.

[andthe7seas]

Anyone else seeing the Golden Globes stuff tonight and just feeling like you’re witnessing the Capitol from the Hunger Games come to life more than ever????

Seeing a room full of people, a vast majority of which are white, and a vaster majority still who have stayed absolutely quiet on major issues for years but have ESPECIALLY been quiet these last few months, applauding BIPOC nominees and winners like they wouldn’t immediately turn a blind eye to their suffering and everyone pretending like it’s so normal and everything is normal and the only issue is a group of hostages are being held in Palestine by terrorists so we’ll wear yellow ribbons about it and not mention a single thing about the fact that those hostages HAVE been offered in exchange for a ceasefire but guess what!!!! A certain government ignored that in favour of continuing their gen0cide! I mean that’s only the tip of the iceberg but damn.

Nothing ignites anger in me like Hollywood’s brainless apathy does.

And I know it’s not every celebrity there, and some of them have been vocal/silenced about their support, but the massive ones like Taylor Swift or Selena Gomez? The ones who have stayed “neutral” or straight up ignored everything despite literally having the power with a SINGLE social media post to revolutionize public opinion? The ones like Jennifer Lawrence who literally played a character whose entire journey mirrored that of what is happening right now???? Be SO for real lmao it would not affect them in the slightest if they spoke up, in fact, it would probably be great for them.

Those awards, these events have always felt relatively meaningless to me but now it just all feels grotesque.