#thinking about the thousands of people missing in gaza and how many of them are dead? | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

hussyknee · 1 year ago

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Just found out that the baby baked in an oven thing Zionists accused Hamas of doing is actually something Zionists themselves did during the Deir Yassin massacre of 1948. And the fetus cut out of the pregnant woman's womb is something that was done in the massacre of the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps by Lebanese militants in concert with Zionists. We already know that they rape women and children in detention. I think the only other huge fucking lie about Oct 7th was the beheaded babies, and I'm legitimately afraid of learning whether or not that was also just something Zionists themselves did at one point.

I mean it's not even improbable because this type of unfathomable cruelty is par for the course with genociders, that only happen when the dominant group has so much disproportionate power in the region that there is only mindless hatred and perfect impunity. (The Brits used to use native infants as crocodile bait.) The reports of IOF ripping babies from their mothers arms, shooting them dead, throwing them aside and dragging the mothers off in front of witnesses were numerous even before this. I've also heard reports of young parents being dragged off and abandoning their toddlers and infants on the roadsides (saw a video of it and I'm going to be haunted to my grave). So those premature babies being left to die of starvation at the hospital was shocking but only surprising because there were so many eyes on the situation due to the efforts of the aid workers and journalists. We thought that Western governments wouldn't pull this shit with the whole world watching. As it turned out, the only reason the last twenty-odd premature babies at Al Shifa Hospital survived was because the director of the place refused to leave them until they were safely shipped off to Egypt (unaccompanied, God knows if the parents will ever get them back. Egyptian governments refused to let the few critically injured people allowed safe passage by the US to go through without visas and passports so they died in the ambulances). Then the IOF kidnapped the director right afterwards. He's still missing.

The organ harvesting thing is also true btw. We've been talking about it ever since they made off with those dead bodies at Al Shifa Hospital. Whether they were going to use them to stage their own propaganda, harvest their organs and skin, or just did it to deprive their families of giving them a burial. Probably all three.

I'm so tired of you people refusing to pay any attention to the news streaming out of Gaza via their own citizen journalists and Al Jazeera and Quds News and families of activists and then accusing us of spreading conspiracy theories! "There's so much misinformation" just say you don't trust Palestinians to tell the truth about their own genocide with your whole chest. Say that your charges of antisemitism is about how much you fear Black people and Muslims. Say that you don't reblog calls for the Jewish community to interrogate their whiteness and their enmeshing with Zionism over the decades because you feel like "it's not your place" to amplify Black and brown people challenging whiteness. Say that you shut us down and police our language about Zionists because you're philosemites who believe Jews could never be as genocidal and bloodthirsty as every other group on the world given the same power. Say that you still don't think Zionists are "as bad as" Nazis because they haven't murdered enough people yet.

I'll take the Zionists cheering over the deaths of people we're mourning over all the hidden polite lethal racism you're hiding under your white liberal tongues. I can't take this death by a thousand cuts shit anymore. Seriously why are you scrolling past? You think we aren't talking about you?

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akajustmerry · 7 months ago

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clearly you don't care for the "European as a fucking baguette" zionist israeli jews (the ones who are descended from holocaust survivors, mind you), but do you realize how many zionist israeli jews also have heritage from SWANA countries, even lebanon? even palestine? (and no, palestinian jews dont live in gaza as many people on here assume, the vast majority of them and their descendants live in israel). they were forced to flee those countries, zionist and antizionist jews alike, ecen before israel existed. many of these countries removed their right to citizenship in those countries, countries they've lived in forever! there's only around 20 jews left in lebanon as of 2022 when there used to be thousands! so many SWANA countries had many thousands of jews for centuries and today many have a few dozen, or even 0! many of those same countries, like tunisia, continue to destroy and vandalize jewish sites that no longer house their missing jewish people, like how they burned an abandoned synagogue after 7/10. zionists dint force them to do that! israel has many problems and has done many inexcusably terrible things to the palestinians and i am not saying otherwise, but other SWANA countries, like lebanon, aren't blameless in this. neither israel nor zionist ideology forced them to ostracize their own jewish citizens, and to claim otherwise is deny those countries and their people of their own agency. zionism as a concept existed long before israel was created for an obvious reason, even if it was at one point fringe. zionism, the belief in the right to a jewish homeland, would have never been so popular among SWANA jews, and initially truly wasn't at all because they were loyal to their home countries, until those countries proved they would always have a target on their backs and violence towards them was inevitable (see the farhud). zionism wasn't even super popular among those "European as a fucking baguette" jews until the holocaust happened and their "real homelands" tried to wipe them out. even after the holocaust, many jews (some presumably antizionist) tried to return to their hometowns and cities, only to get killed by their formwr neighbours. this happened multiple times, if you care. for many "European as a fucking baguette" zionists, arriving in israel was a last resort since most countries had jewish immigration quotas. you don't think they would've preferred to remain in their more recent homelands??

we're always discarded and shuffled around, which is why i empathize with the palestinians as someone of egyptian jewish heritage, since egypt made refugees of their own large and historic jewish population. i even empathize with you and how you yearn for lebanon. ido that with egypt. just like it isn't fair that egypt's jews faced violence and were forced to become reugees, it isn't fair that they palestinians face the violence they do and that so many of them have become refugees, too. but it is callous of you to accuse zionists of being crass colonialist liars for daring to exist in their current home! there are so many zionists in israel, arabs and jews alike, who want an end to the war and an end to the violence. there are zionists who dont condone violence at all and want palestinians to be their neighbours, living side by side! to say that they all don't care about their home or the people suffering there is unbelievably out of touch! have you spoken to SWANA zionists before? do you even try to see our pov? do you know anything about "standing together" organization??

and if you truly want to "fight zionism", it's also on the international community to make their communities safe for jewish people, because it's that historic lack of safety and rampant slaughter that dumped so many evil colonizing zionists into israel in the first place. jews used to live all over the levant but dont any longer and that isnt the fault of zionism! 3 jews live in syria today when there used to be 10s of 1000s, for another exampl e. if you turned back the clock to the 1940s and ask new zionist refugees (colonisers to you) how they felt about permanently settling in israel, you'd probably be surprised at how many of them would say that they wished they never had to leave their homes either even though they could never go back. it's the audacity for me, thinking theres only one bad actor here. i'm not an israeli of lebanese jewish heritage, most of whom are zionist by no surprise, but i couldn't imagine how they'd feel reading what you posted!! you don't think lebanese israelis (even the terrible zionist ones) don't have a love for the land? is that love negated once you are a zionist?

i jst really, really hate the myth that jews were living perfectly fine in arab countries before israel ruined everything. SWANA non jews (and diaspora) say this all the time! but i have stories in my family and my other SWANA jewish friends have stories in their families that go back generations about how their "fellow arabs" oppressed and mistreated and physically hurt them before 1948 no matter how loyal we were. why do you think mizrahi today are zionists? should we have just stayed put and let our neighbours kill us or should we have bravely fought back like the palestinians do? (this isnt sarcasm. they are brave to me) maybe our grandparents couldve honourably fought back too, but they ahouldnt have had to and neither should the palestinians. violence begets violence. it didnt start with us though. zionists aren't inherently violent, which is why many zionist israelis are trying to end the violence and force a ceasefire too!! how is this hard to understand?

i never said or implied any of what you're arguing here but i am not arguing with a zionist apologist who knows fuck all about me and approaches me in bad faith. fuck off. half of this isn't even true. save your feewings for your diary next time. the only reason i am publishing this is so people can see the kind of shit i get in my askbox daily just for speaking about Palestinian liberation and ending Israeli occupation as a Lebanese person.

#i am so tired #anon #zionism

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onetruesirius · 1 year ago

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I sit here and I watch the news about Gaza

and I think

shit, I need to get back to work;

it's toxic to just fixate on the news,

It's bad for my mental health.

I can't be irresponsible to myself

I have class in the morning.

I have exams next week...

But how can I turn a blind eye?

How can I not care

that nine thousand Gazan children are dead,

that the Israeli Occupation Force has dropped the equivalent of an atomic bomb

on a space about the size of the New York City metropolis,

that an episcopal church was bombed—

it was one of the oldest churches in the world,

that one of the oldest mosques in the region was destroyed

that hospitals are being shelled with doctors and patients still within,

that men are carrying pieces of their dead children out of houses in plastic grocery bags because there's no other way to carry that many pieces in their hands,

that over a million people were told to evacuate on bombed-out roads,

and then they were shot and bombed with USAmerican white phosphorus when trying to leave?

Do you know what white phosphorus does to a human body?????

Please google it.

And if you "don't want to see something like that"

Oh,

I want you to google it even more now.

just to be appropriately horrified.

How can I not see that the Israeli government doesn't see Palestinian people [THEIR people if we're going by statehood metrics, who were on that land when the BRITISH GOVERNMENT decided to make the state] as human beings,

that they'd do anything to slaughter Palestinians under the cover of radio silence so the world turns away?

And that men wail from minarets—

not to call their flock to holy prayer but

to speak messages of hope that god will save them,

to attempt to reach the outside world, when the information reaches the people at the edge of the strip, who have international SIM cards and can get the word out,

and to deliver news of where the bombs fall so that paramedics can know where to dig more bodies out—the bodies that aren't a bloody slurry sprayed across the streets and walls, anyways.

And that journalists are being executed en masse to hide the story.

And that men are being stripped naken and forced to sit on the ground for hours at a time, just like in Nazi Germany.

And I can't forget the fact that the United States, MY NATION, voted AGAINST a UN call for a ceasefire...

TWICE.

And that construction companies are already tearing down the old apartments to make room for new living arrangements for the colonisers, before the old buildings even stop burning.

And that settlers are coming into these abandoned homes and looting food and jewelry and desecrating prayer rugs.

And it isn't the fault of Jewish people.

I know that.

Jewish people deserve a place to be safe and free, wherever they are...

But this fact likewise does not require the creation of an ethnostate.

The implication that the only way for Jewish people to be safe is to kill everyone else... is it not in itself antisemitic?

I'm scared for the Palestinian people, and also for my Jewish diaspora friends.

They hate what's going on just as much as I do,

but they're going to get blamed by well-meaning Palestine supporters.

I know they will.

They know they will.

We all know that they will.

Another wave of antisemitism.

Another wave of islamophobia.

Another wave of killings.

Another wave of ethnic cleansing.

On it goes.

A little boy was already killed by his mother's racist landlord in Chicago. Stabbed 26 times.

Three college students were attacked and one was maimed for life.

Attacks against synagogues here in the US have only increased. Two people were shot, allegedly for a Free Palestine...

But we all know that the neonazis have been using this mess to stir the pot against Jewish people and boost their recruitment.

The Palestinian 2023/24 school year has been officially canceled going forward.

Because the enrolled students are dead or missing.

Because they were bombed with American ground-to-ground missiles.

We all know the missiles are American in origin.

Russia has its own genocide to attend to, and China doesn't care enough to give arms to anyone. And we know it's American White Phosphorus.

All the while, war profiteers in my nation get richer and richer,

richer and richer and richer,

and richer and richer and richer and richer and richer and richer—

and they'll laugh like the evil FUCKING pricks that they are

when Gaza gets bombed,

and they'll laugh like the evil FUCKING pricks that they are

when Jewish people get attacked in the streets,

because every act of violence

and every sentiment of hated

fills their pockets with more and more and more US-AMERICAN DOLLARS and GUNS and BOMBINGS and SHOOTINGS and HATRED and GOD BLESS AMERICA—

or something like that

I've signed petitions.

I've signed so many I've lost track of the ones I've signed and the ones I haven't, the ones for other countries that I can repost but can't sign or they might get tossed out.

I've donated money to relief organizations for when the borders re-open, because I'm an optimistic bastard like that.

I've sent emails.

I've sent... so many emails.

I've called all my Representatives in Congress.

I've spread news to as many of my friends as I can without them blocking me.

And still Gaza burns.

And still children are slaughtered, even during the fake ceasefire.

And still I have exams next week.

And still I think about how I really shouldn't fixate on this, because it affects my mood.

and it's been impacting my performance at school.

and it's been undoing months of work I've done with my therapist to try and disconnect from current events.

And still I think about how

"the current events"

rain down like hellfire on innocent mothers of dead children,

and children of dead mothers,

and sisters of dead brothers,

and brothers of dead sisters,

and fathers of dead babies,

and babies of dead fathers,

and teachers of dead students,

and students of dead teachers,

and churches and pastors,

and mosques and imams,

and hospitals and doctors,

and synagogues and rabbis,

and the fucking relief trucks that were filled with food and water.

And here I sit, and I don't know what to do about it????

And I wonder if this is all the point?

To make things worse and worse and worse and worse so that people are so unbearably exhausted from just trying to do the right thing

that they can't take care of themselves?

That they can't achieve upwards mobility?

That they can't make any difference at all for the things that matter most to them?

but I'm just one monkey...

one monkey can't solve systemic problems

that are baked into the roots of our society.

It's a first world problem, for sure. I have the privilege to be able to unplug from this and rest in my bed and not get bombed.

But I just want to make things better, for everyone...

I know that I can't do that.

But I wish I could

Oh, god—

I wish I could.

But I guess I'll just go to sleep.

After all

I have class in the morning.

#palestine #free gaza #free palestine #from the river to the sea palestine will be free #first world problems

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hellsbellschime · 9 months ago

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I just wanted to thank you so, so much for standing up for Jews right now. I can't express how much it means to me and the rest of the Jewish community that you're one of the few people who've actually gone to bat for us when everyone else went mask off ❤️

<3 honestly you shouldn't be thanking me because it's just the right thing to do, but the amount of antisemitism I have seen since 10/7 has been APPALLING and it's extremely scary. The people who went mask off REALLY went mask off, but there has also been so much stealth antisemitism in so much of the reaction and reporting that I've seen about the situation that it really threw me off and made me realize that I vastly underestimated how popular antisemitism still is.

Clearly, discussing Zionism in the past has REALLY not gone well for me, but the reaction toward it for me specifically and in general has always set off alarm bells that there was antisemitism baked in there which was trying to be passed off as anti-Zionism or anti-Israeli sentiment. But I feel like 10/7 was such a horrific revelation for Jewish people and allies because, at least for me, it was a revelation that for certain people, basically there is no limit to what you could do to an Israeli. There is no limit to what crimes or atrocities could be committed against someone because of where they lived or where they were born, and there is a really scary number of people who would paint that kind of atrocity as some kind of rebellious act of freedom. If you are calling literal babies colonizers and you are saying that the gang rape and mutilation of people's genitals is somehow an act of decolonization, you are trying to dress up your genocidal antisemitic POV with the veneer of some kind of social justice or moral righteousness.

But there are bigger fish to fry here that I think a lot of people are missing, which again further disturbs and upsets me. Because Jewish people should be able to just exist in the world, but the ebb and flow of antisemitism is also an exceptionally good indicator of when social and political upheaval is about to REALLY start fucking everyone's lives up. So again, people should be concerned about this because it's morally wrong, but they should also be concerned about it because Jewish people are also almost always just the first up to bat. Once we pass that critical point where antisemitism becomes socially acceptable again, it's almost always because we are at the beginning of a really hard downturn that is going to destroy a TON of people's lives. So the fact that so many people on the left and right are now united in the whole "oh wouldn't our lives be so much better if we could just take power away from the Jews" is a REALLY REALLY REALLY scary sign that should not be ignored.

And of course, the fact that the Israeli government actually does horrible shit makes this a much easier sell. There are a ton of very legitimate problems that need to be fixed and should absolutely be called out. But again, it's a very scary mindset to get drawn into, because yes you think you're a leftist and completely unaffected by the antisemitism that has been baked into our culture for literally thousands of years and you're on the right side because WELL THE JEWS ARE ACTUALLY BAD NOW. But what the hell do you think people thought in 1930s Europe? Do you think that they hated Jewish people just to hate them? Or do you think that they also genuinely believed that Jewish people were actually the problem then too?

It's heinous because 10/7 and the invasion of Gaza afterward is a perfect vector to hide antisemitism in, and it really seems to be working well. The overt antisemitism I've seen as well as the way more covert that I've seen has shocked me, and even though I'm not Jewish, I considered myself to be more aware than most that antisemitism is not even remotely a problem that's been relegated to the past.

But I'm sorry that you've had to deal with this because I am just a person who is capable of empathy and understands how fucked up it must be to experience this, while Jewish people actually have to experience it. The lack of pushback against pretty obvious antisemitism is really frightening, and again, the whole progression of what has happened is exceptionally cruel and offensive. You can support a free and democratic Palestine while condemning 10/7 (in fact I'd argue given that Hamas hasn't held elections in decades, it's a REQUIREMENT to condemn 10/7 if you genuinely support a free Palestine). You can acknowledge that Hamas is an outwardly stated and admitted antisemitic terrorist organization and 10/7 was an expressly antisemitic attack and fight for an end to the Israeli occupation of Palestine.

But the amount of pressure I've seen put on Jewish people specifically to go along with the complete reframing and minimization of 10/7, because actually if you live in Israel then you had it coming, and because the Palestinians have it worse you can't even take a moment to react emotionally to something truly horrific and traumatizing, and if you don't think exactly what we think you're one of the "bad ones," has been disturbing to watch. Your pain is incredibly valid and I know everything that has happened must be so difficult and isolating, but just know that you do have supporters out there, even if you deserve to have a lot more.

#antisemitism for ts

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whatevergreen · 9 months ago

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"The Most American Thing That Has Ever Happened

A man set himself on fire outside the Israeli embassy in Washington today. He said he did it in protest of the genocide in Gaza.

Independent journalist Talia Jane reports that she was able to obtain footage of the incident, which the unnamed man apparently recorded himself. Jane reports that the man said he is “an active duty member of the U.S. Air Force” and that he “will no longer be complicit in genocide.” After igniting he repeatedly yelled “Free Palestine.”

According to Jane, a police officer showed up pointing a gun at the man’s burning body; I guess that’s just what American cops do when they aren’t sure what to do. Someone who was actually trying to save the man reportedly yelled “I don’t need guns, I need fire extinguishers!”

This just might be the most American thing I have ever heard of. It’s more American than the fake bald eagle cries they put in Hollywood movies. It’s more American than monster trucks and mass shootings. You simply cannot fit more America into a single incident than a man dying a horrifying death in protest of war crimes while a first responder screams at cops to stop pointing their guns at him and go get fire extinguishers. If you were to pick a single moment in history to sum up the essence and expression of the US empire, that would be it.

The New York Times reports that the man “was taken to a nearby hospital with life-threatening injuries and remains in critical condition.” A spokesman for the US Air Force has reportedly confirmed that the man is an active duty member.

“I’m about to engage in an extreme act of protest,” the man reportedly recorded himself saying before the incident. “But compared to what people have been experiencing in Palestine at the hands of their colonizers, it’s not extreme at all. This is what our ruling class has decided will be normal.”

The nameless protestor is correct. People in Gaza are being burned alive, are suffocating to death under collapsed buildings, are having operations and amputations without anesthesia, are starving to death, are watching their loved ones die in front of them, are experiencing suffering of a degree that very few of us here in the west can even imagine. And our ruling class is absolutely attempting to normalize this for us.

This isn’t even the first self-immolation we’ve seen in protest of Israel’s US-backed atrocities after October 7; back in December an unnamed protester with a Palestinian flag self-immolated outside the Israeli consulate building in Atlanta.

And as I reflect on this I can’t help thinking, how many Israel supporters have self-immolated in protest of October 7? How many Israel supporters have self-immolated in protest of the super serious antisemitism crisis they claim is making Jews feel unsafe in their communities? Surely their claims are just as serious and sincere as those of Palestine supporters, no?

Of course not. This has not happened and the very idea is laughable. Israel apologists insist that it is they and their favorite ethnostate who are the real victims in all this, rather than the population of Gaza who has seen tens of thousands of Palestinians annihilated while Israeli soldiers openly celebrate their mass displacement and death. But you don’t see them self-immolating; you see them cheerleading for ethnic cleansing and genocide. They wouldn’t do anything to cause themselves pain or inconvenience to promote their pet agenda. They wouldn’t even miss brunch for it.

It’s a horrific thing, burning alive. I suspect that pretty much everyone who’s ever self-immolated has had serious regrets about it within the first few seconds. There’s simply nothing one can do to prepare oneself for the experience of that kind of pain, or for how long it can take them to lose consciousness after it’s started. At that point the only comfort they could possibly offer themselves is that it can’t go on forever.

But the fact that anyone would ever take such a measure at all shows how profoundly urgent they recognize this issue to be, and how much more sincere they are about it than those on the other side."

https://twitter.com/caitoz/status/1761939039937335584

#aaron bushnell #protest #israel #gaza #cops

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sevenoctober7 · 9 months ago

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The Most American Thing That Has Ever Happened

A man set himself on fire outside the Israeli embassy in Washington today. He said he did it in protest of the genocide in Gaza.

But the fact that anyone would ever take such a measure at all shows how profoundly urgent they recognize this issue to be, and how much more sincere they are about it than those on the other side.

#palestine #gazaunderattack #gaza #gaza hospital #free palestine #israel is a terrorist state #غزة تحت القصف #فلسطين #طوفان الاقصي #غزة

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mermer404 · 1 year ago

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just a wild guess /gen: i think people are mad at audible because they are only acknowledging israel and not both israel and palestine at the very least?

also “tragic events in the middle east” is how audible phrased it. not OP.

it’s entirely tone deaf to give 6 months of free books in the first place when people are literally dying. but the overarching problem is also that audible chose to not speak up on the genocide happening nor chose to at least promote palestinian literature.

it’s less about dehumanising israelis and more about the obvious favouritism, y’know?

also, as admirable as the link for donations to the red crescent, it’s not of much use to palestinians right now because there are blockades places and they cannot receive any aid or relief. in fact, hospitals in palestine as of right now, are not even able to treat their patients. and, the banks are destroyed so there is no way for anyone to withdraw money in gaza (as reported by journalists on site)

would be much more helpful if you shared links to ceasefire petitions and BDS-approved boycott lists that directly fund the IDF.

tbh i feel like even israelis should boycott audible that was such performative activism from them.

Hi anon!

I'm responding to this because you're genuine and you're polite, which I appreciate. So many people don't bother with human decency, I want to acknowledge it. You are a person just like me trying real hard just like me and I want to send you my appreciation rather than ignore you.

However, I feel like you missed my point entirely. Maybe some time I will go over it point by point in detail with sources and shit, because you seem a decent person and maybe we could have an actual conversation, but we are it seems on very different pages and putting us on the same page would be a lot of work. A lot of what you said is misleading or only part of the picture, but I am very very tired and very sad, I can't do this right now. People I know have died and my heart aches. You understand that, I hope. Talking about this just makes me sadder. Can only do a little bit at a time, you know?

In short:

In case that wasn't clear: what is happening in Palestine (to avoid the "SiTuAtiON 😐" lingo it's being bombed and invaded, thousands of people are dead, probably tens of thousands even, most civillians and many children) is deeply deeply sad and upsetting. A dead child is a dead child and I am angered and hurt by it just the same. Civilian death is sad no matter what side they are on.

I am not your enemy. Our relationship may be complicated, but in many ways we are allies.

It is tone deaf but I didn't expect better from Amazon. This is a stupid publicity trick, it's pathetic. I did — god have pity on my poor soul — expect better from fellow leftists. This "😐" is the exact same patronizing indifference, done in the most stupid passive-aggressive way, that's the shit I'm talking about. This is how they talk about us, if not much worse.

I don't know how into social media you are, but if you've noticed: people talk a lot about Palestine (which again, is important) but they do not mention, not in one word in their dozens of posts on the topic, what happened on October 7th. If you get a lot of your info on social media, maybe you didn't know about it either. I empathize with what you are saying, I feel that kind of pain on my skin, because those same people are doing that to us. When people were being burned alive in their homes, children abused and shot, girls raped to the point of their bodies breaking, these same people were silent. I understand what you are talking about, deeply. Many of these people are upset when companies or celebraties do this kind of one sided thing and then go on to do the same to Israelis. When my people were dying, terribly, in horrific ways, they turned a blind eye, and that hurt, deeply. Especially as a Jewish person.

Donations do not only "get stuck" situationally, they are for the most part pocketed by Hamas, have been for years. It's one of the most rich terrorist organizations in the world, and a lot of it is money from people like you. The red crescent is one of the very few more reliable charities. I do unironically hope people donate — but they probably won't. This was meant to highlight the entire bullshitery of the situation. I'm well aware donations can be of little use. It's much more use than any of this garbage, though.

The BDS are a shitty antisemitic organization and I am kindly discouraging you from supporting them. I was going to link why they are shitty and antisemitic + peace organizations and charities you can participate and donate to instead but honestly I am so tired and I just want to cry. Do your own research. You got this.

Israelis' friends and family are dead. They are crying and aching while people here type away. Even with that, many are doing incredible amounts of activism — making food, donating clothes, delivering it all to the hundreds of thousands of people who've been forced to leave their homes near the borders. This is just one example. They are doing so much more than boycotting Amazon, which is honestly, excuse my french, a shitty lazy pathetic form of activism, that is basically what my post was about. People have been focusing on boycotts and random internet bullshit on Twitter instead of what really matters. Even the calls for ceasefire — Hamas have never in the history of its existence withheld a ceasefire agreement, and 240 civilians, 30 of them children, are still held hostage. Activism from the international pro-Palestine movements has been often useless, simplistic, ignorant and sometimes straight up violent. Just a few days ago a man was killed in a pro-Palestine protest. I don't want to discourage activism, quite the opposite. But people are so shit at it, meanwhile my people here and my brothers & sisters over the border are dying. Do you understand my frustration?

If this is what works for you I get that. The world is shit and you do anything to get a sense of control back. But I've lost too much and ache too much to have any time, energy or respect for the kind of bullshit these people have been up to.

If this is too harsh, or hurt your feelings, I am sorry. Again, the way I see it, you are my ally and I am yours. I hope you understand what I am saying and know my heart is with you. I hope your heart is with me, too.

Thank you for caring. Stay safe.

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pink-lemonadefairy · 1 year ago

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just me screaming and yelling into the void.

i feel like i’m going crazy sometimes. specifically regarding the literal genocide of palestinians being documented and broadcast online right now. i don’t know how people have gone so long, literally nearly two months (!!!!!!), without knowing what’s going on. how? how is that possible? and let’s say they do know about it, they might say “well, it doesn’t concern me” or “i’m neutral” or “it’s too complicated”. WHAT? i’m so so sorry? what was that? what on earth is complicated about apartheid, occupation, colonisation or GENOCIDE. and it does concern you, actually!!! like it really does!! it should enrage you that the world is watching an occupying power murdering en masse. it should enrage you that human beings are being subjected to such horrific acts of violence. it should enrage you that children are writing names on their arms so people can identify them if a bomb drops on their heads. it should enrage you that palestinians have to scream and cry and shout and hold up their martyred loved ones to validate their suffering and get the world to even glance at them. it should enrage you that a group of children had to stand in front of the tv, say a speech in english, to get the world to listen. it should enrage you that nurses, doctors, and surgeons had to hold a press conference in front of the martyred to show the world what is happening — because telling the world wasn’t enough. it should enrage you that the president of the united states accused people in gaza of releasing false numbers of people killed, to which the palestinian ministry of health had to release tens of pages of names — entire families aged 0-100 — of the palestinians murdered. to justify their suffering. it should fucking enrage you beyond belief that even democrats and progressives in the u.s don’t give a shit about marginalised communities or brown people or arabic people or muslims because they just signed a bill declaring any condemnation or criticism of the “state” of israel is anti-semitic. the list goes on and on and on and on. so many people don’t care. they don’t care or they’re okay with it or they support it. from people in incredible positions of power to celebrities to the every day person — so many people don’t give a shit about what is happening in gaza and the west bank. people are refusing to hold any person with a platform accountable and for what? they’re refusing to boycott (such a simple thing to do) and for what? for WHAT? is your life going to end when you don’t get your overpriced starbucks drink? or your shitty mcdonalds? is it going to end when you put your critical thinking caps on and start looking at celebrities for who they really are at the end of the day: money hungry capitalists? is your life going to end if you acknowledge that people don’t want to vote for joe biden for committing genocide? is it???? is it???!!!!! when will people wake up. when will they open their eyes and pay attention and do the right thing. when will people have a backbone. when will people gain empathy for an entire people being erased from the planet. when when when when when when when.

like do people not see it? the terrorist occupiers are erasing an entire people. an entire group of people. they’re destroying their historical documents, their schools, their neighbourhoods, their olive trees. they’ve colonised their food for fucks sake. they’ve killed doctors, scientists, journalists. they’re targeting anyone who speaks up against them. they’ve taken thousands of hostages. they’ve berated and beaten and tortured those hostages. they’ve bombed mosques and one of the oldest churches in the world. they’ve raped women and left babies with pieces of their skulls missing. they’ve made parents carry pieces of their children in bags. they violated a “truce”. they didn’t let them have funerals or celebrate or dance when they were reunited with loved ones (freed hostages) they’ve arrested palestinians for throwing rocks at tanks. rocks at tanks. rocks. at tanks. they ran over rachel corrie with a bulldozer for protesting the demolition of palestinian homes in rafah. they shot and killed a nine year old boy for standing in the street. they beat orthodox jews for standing in solidarity with palestinians. they shot a jewish man pleading for his life. they’ve stolen they’ve murdered they’ve beaten they’ve colonised they’ve done nearly every unimaginable, horrific act of violence under the sun to palestinians. where is your anger. where is your grief. where is your empathy for palestinians. where is everyone? where is the world?

#i’m just so upset #some people really just don’t care #they don’t care at all #and it fills me with so much sadness and rage #im going to be angry about this forever #genuinely forever #i will die raging about how zionsits murdered so many palestinians and took their land #faerie.txt <3

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opencommunion · 1 year ago

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all of this but one correction I think is important: we are not witnessing the “early stages” of genocide. not only has Zionism always been an inherently genocidal project, they have been laying the infrastructural, political, and psychological groundwork for the current Gaza genocide for decades. this has been obvious to Palestinians, and to others who are informed about Palestine and about how genocides happen, for a long time. from the siege and blockade itself, to the worldwide propaganda project of dehumanizing Palestinians and glorifying Israel, it’s been obvious where Israel/USA was going with this. we are now at the stage of genocide where people who have been trapped in a concentration camp for over a decade are being systematically murdered in the tens of thousands. thank god so many more people are finally waking up, but everyone needs to learn about the glaringly obvious signs they missed so they can recognize them in the future, and we need to unify around not only stopping the current Gaza genocide, but also liberating Palestine from the river to the sea

I can't stop thinking about the news out of Palestine. Israel is sieging al Shifa hospital. Videos of people's limbs being severed off are haunting (graphic video tw). The hospital has ran out of fuel and 39 babies in incubators are fending for their lives by themselves, because Israel has stationed snipers around the hospital and is shooting all medical crew that walks into their sight.

First, the narrative was Israel would never bomb hospitals. Now, the hospitals are Hamas bases. Then, we respect journalists. Now, we have a fucking kill list of journalists because they are Hamas collaborators. First, we are not letting fuel in until the hostages are released. Now, we are not accepting the hostages back because that would stop our ground invasion and let Hamas win. And I could go on about every single lie they're making up. If you look up "Hamas rape" on google, the first link leads to Times of Israel saying Israel has found no forensic evidence of sexual violence, and only one eyewitness testimony out of 3.5k people attending the rave. If you Google "Hamas beheaded babies" the top links say they have no evidence for the claim besides word of mouth from extremist soldiers. Israeli extremists think about the ugliest goriest scene they can make out in their sick heads, tell that to a international journalist and they run away with it like it's gospel.

And children are being killed in the name of these lies. Thousands are being displaced in images that remind me of the pictures of Tantura 75 years ago, with their hands up so the tanks don't shoot them. Amputees are leaving the hospitals in wheelchairs hours after their surgeries because they are being shot at. Elders who survived the Nakba on 48 are having to walk towards Southern Gaza on foot (imagine walking from one end of your city to the other on foot), displaced again. People are cheering for the haunting images of white phosphorus bombs being dropped over Gaza. Gazan workers who were arrested in the West Bank are being thrust back into the bombings wearing numbered labels.

This is not normal. We are seeing the early stages of the settler colonial genocide of an indigenous population. Native leaders who have visited Gaza say its refugee camps look eerily like reservations. We can stop this. For the first time we are able to see wide scale accounts from the hands of the people suffering the genocide, and Israel is so scared of it they have cut all communications in Gaza.

This is our litmus test. I think we have never seen more clearly, with Palestine, Armenia, Congo and Sudan how colonialism has made our world a rotten place to live in.

The South African apartheid collapsed due to boycotts. We have to do everything in our power to stop Israel's hegemony. Even talking to a group of friends about Palestine changes the status quo. There's no world where we can live peacefully if Israel accomplishes their goals.

Keep yourself updated and share Palestinian voices. Muna El-Kurd said every tweet is like a treasure to them, because their voices are repressed on social media and even on this very app. Make it your action item to share something about the Palestinian plight everyday. Here are some resources:

Al Jazeera, Anadolu Agency, Mondoweiss

Boycott Divest Sanction Movement

Palestinian Youth Movement is organizing protests and direct action against weapons factories across the US

Mohammed El-Kurd (twitter / instagram)

Muhammad Shehada (twitter)

Motaz Azaiza (instagram) - reporting directly from Gaza.

Hind Khudary - reporting directly from Gaza. Her husband and daughter moved South to run from the tanks but she stayed behind to record the genocide. The least we can do is not let her calls fall on deaf ears.

You can participate in boycotts wherever you are in the world, through BDS guidelines. Don't be overwhelmed by gigantic boycott lists. BDS explicitly targets only a few brands which have bigger impact. You can stop consuming from as many brands as you want, though, and by all means feel free to give a 1 star review to McDonalds, Papa John, Pizza Hut, Burger King and Starbucks. Right now, they are focusing on boycotting the following:

Carrefour, HP, Puma, Sabra, Sodastream, Ahava cosmetics, Israeli fruits and vegetables

Push for a cultural boycott - pressure your favorite artist to speak out on Palestine and cancel any upcoming performances on occupied territory (Lorde cancelled her gig in Israel because of this. It works.)

If you can, participate in direct action or donate.

Palestine Action works to shut down Israeli weapons factories in the UK and USA, and have successfully shut down one of their firms in London.Some of the activists are going on trial and are calling for mobilizing on court.

Palestinian Youth Movement is organizing direct actions to stop the shipping of wars to Israel. Follow them.

Educate yourself. Read into Palestinian history and the occupation. You can't common sense people out of decades of propaganda. If your arguments crumble when a zionist brings up the "disengagement of Gaza", you have to learn more.

Read Decolonize Palestine. They have 15 minute reads that concisely explain the occupation (and its colonial roots) and debunk popular myths, including pinkwashing.

Read on Palestine. Here's an amazing masterpost.

Verso Book Club is giving out free books on Palestine (I personally downloaded Ten Myths about Israel by Ilan Pappe. If you still believe in the two states solution, this book by an Israeli professor debunks it).

Call your representatives. The Labour Party in the UK had an emergency meeting after several councilors threatened to resign if they didn't condemn Israeli war crimes. Calling to show your complaints works, even more if you live in a country that funds genocide.

FOR PEOPLE IN THE USA: USCPR has developed this toolkit for calls, here's a document that autosends emails to your representatives and here's a toolkit by Ceasefire in Gaza NOW!

FOR PEOPLE IN EUROPE: Here's a toolkit by Voices in Europe for Peace targeting the European Parliament and one specific for almost all countries in Europe, including Germany, Ireland, Poland, Denmark, Sweden, Netherlands, Greece, Norway, Italy, Portugal, Spain, Finland, Austria, Belgium Romania and Ukraine

FOR PEOPLE IN THE UK: Friends of Al-Aqsa UK and Palestine Solidarity UK have made toolkits for calls and emails

FOR PEOPLE IN AUSTRALIA: Here's a toolkit by Stand With Palestine

FOR PEOPLE IN CANADA: Here's a toolkit by Indepent Jewish Voices for Canada

Join a protest. Here's a constantly updating list of protests:

Global calendar

Another global calendar (go to the instragram of the organizers to confirm your protest)

USA calendar

Australia calendar

Feel free to add more.

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speechlesstalking · 29 days ago

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Why I Changed from Democrat to Unaffiliated

Preface because people still don’t get it: I’m not endorsing any candidate or telling you who to vote for. I think when people hear the question “why are you voting for genocide supporters” people assume they’re being shamed. and I’m sure many are asking this question for that reason and I definitely don’t fault them. Personally, that’s not my goal. I don’t think effective growth or change comes from shame. I ask it genuinely hoping you have an answer that you believe in. If you do, I can disagree but I can’t fault you for that. As we say in arabic: “khalus” it’s enough. If you don’t have an answer or if your answer makes you feel ashamed, that’s when I want you to think more on it.

If you follow my stories on Instagram you know I’ve been sharing about Palestine and current events every day for the past year. At this point I see how my inner circle is a bubble of people agreeing with each other and while that is important to have, lately it’s felt a little pointless. That feeling inspired me to start writing this and I hope sharing it might do some good.

If you don’t already know, I am Palestinian-American. Palestinian on my dad’s side and American with Eastern European Jewish ancestry on my mom’s side. The past year has been extremely difficult as I watch Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank being tortured and slaughtered with my tax dollars. There’s much more to be said on that but right now I want to share thoughts that have been weighing heavily on my mind as we near the presidential election. I’ll preface this by saying this was originally written with a blue audience in mind, mainly because I used to be a democrat and can speak on that experience. Still, no matter who you are I hope there’s something you can ponder or take away from this.

I understand why people fear a Trump presidency and believe that Harris will be better. I can see that many people who feel this way are well-intended and at their core want what they think is best for people in this country. I get it - I’ve voted blue since I was 18, over a decade ago. I voted for Biden in 2020 even though I didn’t fully approve because I thought (and still think) Trump would be a horrible president and I was convinced it was the lesser evil/good strategy vote. Ultimately, the only thing that got me was the genocide of my people. From what I’ve learned over the last year, it seems to me that this unwavering support for Harris/democrats is due to chronic misinformation/propaganda and a serious lack of perspective. So if you’re voting blue, I ask you to consider why you’re willing to vote for an administration that is actively committing genocide by continuously arming and funding it and refusing to use any power they wield over “Israel” to force them to stop. Constantly I hear liberals say to anyone who criticizes Biden/Harris for this complicity “so you think Trump will be better?” or “Trump will be worse for Palestine” or “There’s too much at stake here to not vote blue.” I reject those statements. Many other Palestinians, Arab-Americans, and anti-zionist do as well. To ask those questions of us is saying that our lives don’t matter. It’s pretending that Palestinian-Americans don’t exist. It says that you value American life more than any other life. And I think people are becoming desensitized to the word “genocide” so let me remind you what it currently entails: 2 million people forcibly displaced from their homes, deprived of food, water, electricity, and necessary medical care, at least 200,000 dead - half of them children, thousands missing or stuck under the rubble, 100k severely or permanently injured, thousands of children missing at least one limb, the creation of the term WCNSF (wounded child no surviving family), and that is only some of it. So what is worse than committing genocide? What could be worse for the nearly 200k and climbing dead Palestinians? There is nothing worse than the continuous murder of our people, families, and friends, the destruction of our ancestral homelands, and the inability for our families to live safely and freely in their homes. If Biden/Harris were committing genocide against your family and people, would you still vote for them?

By now, chances are you have already voted and if not, I don’t presume to think I can change your mind. But in any case, I ask you to consider what you are so scared of by a Trump presidency (one that we have already gone through and come out of) and why that means you’re ok with allowing people committing genocide to stay in power. I too fear the loss of rights for women/queer/trans/houseless/disabled/POC, etc. I also fear fascism. What I’m most afraid of is that fascism is already happening in this country and the majority refuse to see it. We’ve put so much faith into democrats “saving democracy” but the way I see it, their interests only lie in their own power and greed. They didn’t forgive student loan debt, make healthcare, food, or housing more affordable, codify Roe v Wade, stop the increasing amount of school shootings or police killings, raise the federal minimum wage, protect union rights, etc etc etc. They haven’t done an arms embargo even though doing so would gain them the votes needed to beat Trump. No politician has delivered enough on their promises in my entire adulthood. We are constantly in a cycle of voting for the “lesser evil” and this year it’s clear to me that there is no lesser evil with these two parties, only evil. They’re different sides of the same coin. A party that supposedly stands for democracy but shames you for and actively prevents you from voting for anyone else isn’t actually democratic. We’ve been here before and it failed. Now I’m voting third party because to get out of this cycle I believe we need to do things differently. Ultimately though, I’ve learned not to put much faith into any party. Maybe more effective change can start to take place with a third party and that is my hope, but overall I believe it’s not them who will make our lives better, it’s us.

No matter who wins, what is your plan for after the election? If you take anything away from my ramblings let it be that voting in November is not the one and only thing you should do for yourself and your community. If Trump wins will you throw your hands up and wait until 2028? I think people need to start actively participating in community building so when shit hits the fan in the government, you have a support system to rely on and power in your own life. This way we won’t feel like everything depends on the beliefs of a select few in power. Strengthening community is the only real way forward. During my time organizing the union at Starbucks, I learned so much about the power of the people but most importantly that people do have power. There will always be more of us than there is of them. There is so much we can do in our own neighborhoods. I live in Philadelphia so I can specifically name a few Philly actions like: contact your local rep about not supporting the 76Place arena in Center City/Chinatown, tell Mayor Parker that her plan for Kensington is immoral, money-wasting, and ultimately dangerous, tell Philly council that you disapprove of Philadelphia giving 23 million dollars to “Israel” every year - money that could be used for our schools and roads and resources. Go to a protest, any protest for whatever you support. Join a tenants rights group. Vote in local elections. Unionize your job and support local unions (ie boycotting Aramark at Philly sports games). All of these actions would more directly impact your day to day life than whoever is president.

All this to say, I’m still learning too. I’m nowhere near the perfect community member and I’m nowhere near fluent in the nuances of politics, but I’m trying. I’m not sharing this to start debates in the comments or tell you what to do, but rather to present questions/thoughts that you may have never considered before. This is the post I wish I read when I was younger. Just think about it, that’s how change starts. Thanks for reading. Free Falasteen.

#free palestine #writing #community #do people read anymore?#voting

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eponinesflowers · 11 months ago

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'Indigenous people throughout the world overwhelmingly stand with Palestine because they have also had their land stolen, lived under apartheid, and been subject to ethnic cleansing. I would rather listen to Indigenous people than speak for them' So have the Jews and no one cares, everyone calls them white colonisers. 6 million Jews have died just during Holocaust. On the other hand, before the terrorist attack on October 7 and before this war started, there were more Palestinians than ever before in history. How exactly was there genocide? You forgot to mention that Arabic countries attacked Israel the day after it was proclaimed. And then again and again and again. You also omitted the fact Gaza was under Egypt for almost 20 years. And also the fact that the wall was built after many terrorist attacks from the side of Palestinians. Speaking of Egypt, how come it did not help Gazans when the war started? How come other Arabic nations did not get humanitarian aid through Egypt borders to Gaza? Saudi Arabia and Qatar are among richest countries on Earth.

Speaking against apartheid is definitely a good thing and yes Israel should definitely work on that. Hard and like yesterday. Fighting for marginalized groups is definitely a good thing. I am behind you on both. But blindly supporting Palestine is not a good thing. Shouting From the river to the sea and basically calling for another holocaust (because that is exactly what is meant in that chant) is not a good thing.

Lastly, i feel like the point i was making, namely indigenous people supporting Palestine because of fight against white colonisers, kinda got lost. If they did it because they want to support an opressed group, i would understand. But most of them base their support on fight against white colonisers when it's actually indigenous people fighting for their land in which they have lived for millenia (there was continuous presence of Jews in Israel, even though Arabic population did their best to ethnically cleanse them), that is just wild and should be called out. Because this breeds hatred which has real consequences and it already caused millions of Jewish lives. Not just during holocaust.

I feel like you’re missing my point. Jewish people have absolutely been through a lot of suffering, but that doesn’t give Israelis a pass to enact similar suffering on other people. I definitely care about what Jewish people have been through, and I do my best to fight against antisemitism when I see it.

Why do y’all keep pointing out that the population increased? That doesn’t mean that ~25,000-30,000 Palestinians haven’t been purposely targeted and murdered by Israel, as well as hundreds of thousands forced to relocate, in an attempt to remove them from their homeland in the past 3 months. Genocide scholars, genocide survivors, and multiple reputable human rights organizations have called this a genocide. Genocide happens in stages, it isn’t irrelevant until there’s even more mass murder.

I never said that I supported those other nations, so that’s not relevant to the argument that I’ve been making. I think that the world watching tens of thousands of children get bombed without taking action is abhorrent, and I would feel that way with any group of people being killed like this.

I’m not “blinding supporting Palestine,” please stop making up my arguments for me. Members of the Likud Party have said multiple similar phrases of “from the river to the sea” and I have not heard a single Israel supporter condemn it for being genocidal rhetoric. Hell, there are Israeli land developers creating ads about “oceanside property” that will be available soon once they force all of the Palestinians out of Gaza. I’m not denying that Hamas has expressed genocidal intent, and fuck them for harming innocent civilians. But it’s not exactly fair to say that demanding a Palestine where people can live freely is a call to genocide while the Israeli government can utilize genocidal rhetoric and actions towards the Palestinians with no critiques of genocide. If you haven’t read the proceedings instituted by South Africa on December 29, I would encourage you to do so, it outlines many of the issues with the Israeli government’s treatment of Palestinians.

The government of Israel has been actively encouraging Ashkenazi Jewish people, who are predominately white, to immigrate there more than other ethnic groups of Jewish people since its conception. The Israeli government sterilized Ethiopian Jewish women. The government, especially the current alt-right iteration, does rely on a good number of white supremacist and colonist tactics, which is why I believe that people bring that up. I do have a difficult time seeing people who claim indigeniety to a region salt the ground and burn ancestral olive trees that are sacred to many Mediterranean people. There doesn’t seem to be much respect for the ancestral land that people are being slaughtered over, which is another reason why many Indigenous activists have issues with Israel’s actions.

If you would like to have civil, respectful discourse, you can message me, but I’m don’t want my blog to be overtaken by this argument and I don’t want to argue with “anonymous”

#free palestine #asks

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bigskydreaming · 4 years ago

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Sometimes I want to follow you but then I dee that you reblog from people who have terrible misinformed/ ignorant borderline xenophobic opinions about certain things I like and they enjoy dragging the things I like.. Then I end up not following you. Even if I block some of them they'll end up on my tl and who knows maybe you have the same/ similar opinions. So yes I love your metas, but sorry I can't bring myself to follow. This has nothing to do with your existing fandoms or "dark" fics.

Okay?

Sfjskgsgksjsi

Sorry I just really don’t know what to do with this? I’m not like, mad about it lol since this is how tumblr is supposed to work I’m pretty sure, like hey it’s cool you like my metas but that doesn’t necessarily mean you’re gonna like me The Person and if someone doesn’t like me then why the fuck would they follow me y’know?

In case this is about my posts yesterday about me being annoyed when people like block me but still wanna use my shit, it’s like....yeah that does legit annoy me because I think that’s dumb and I don’t get it. When I don’t like someone I don’t usually WANT to use or peruse content they create because it’s associated with them and I already decided they weren’t someone I care to associate with sooooo.....

But also, that was literally just me saying hey this annoys me. That’s it, that’s the whole scoop. Annoying things are annoying but expressing that isn’t like.....it doesn’t mean I’m going to DO anything about it or even that there’s anything TO do about it, it’s more just haha hey I too am a Person and I am disorderly and my fandom blog doubles as my main blog so here I am having Feelings, let me show you them, RAWR dinosaur emoji????

Idk maybe it’s that it’s 4 am and my brain hasn’t even rebooted enough for me to even figure out why the fuck I’m even awake, lol, but I guess what I’m saying is it sounds like you’ve made an A+ decision for yourself here? I have no idea what mutuals I reblog from that have views you see as xenophobic, without you, like, actually saying what views those are so I can confirm where I stand on them or sit or whatever. But I can tell you that I don’t follow a lot of people period and my mutuals list is pretty short and basically consists of individuals I’ve met on here that I would absolutely go the fuck to bat for, any time, any place, simply because I think they’re super cool people across the board and that’s what you do for super cool people: baseball as an analogy for friendship I guess? I never did get that particular analogy tbh. Or baseball.

Sooooooo tbh I’m like, not the guy to be all that mad that someone doesn’t like me, it’s kinda like lol this is a neat convo I’m just not sure why we’re having it, but what I’m far less keen on is like, just any kinda slight against my mutuals aka friends and friend type people at all.....especially when that doesn’t actually include what it is someone specifically has a problem with cuz Vague Wording is Vague, and when like I said, my inclination is to go to bat for my mutuals, I would kinda like to know what it is I should be swinging at in their defense. Just general FYI for anyone reading this or like future reference or whatever.

(Unless this is about Palestine again slash still, in which case I mean, I already said what I said there and what I said was What We’re Not Gonna Do is make this topic White Guy Sitting Ten Thousand Miles Away From the Gaza Strip Discourse Hour, and the one thing I always am is consistent aka stubborn aka....eh, you get it).

But anyway, my vaguely Point shaped thing here is just that, I am not a pod person or an invertebrate and my opinions are my own and I do not mindlessly agree with things others say even if it is a mutual or friend saying it, but that said, my mutuals are people I am more likely to agree with than not. So absent knowing specifically what posts of theirs concern you as to whether or not I agree with them, all I can really say is if you’re that bothered by some of their opinions in general then yeah, you’re probably best off avoiding me as well in order to keep your dash a place you’re comfortable with, regardless of how you feel about my fandom meta outside of those posts/opinions. Cuz there really is no outside as far as I see it; my fandom meta is me as is my decision as to who I reblog from and associate with as are my opinions and stances on non fandom matters. It’s all just the same me, one network, many shows, but if any of those shows are the equivalent of Fox News in your eyes, then yeah, for sure, screw that one show that has the one guy you really like and just change the channel and find one that’s a better match for you.

It’s allllllll good.

And for the record, if it’s ultimately more just that they bash things you like and seeing that randomly pop up on your dash might bum you out enough that it’s worth it not to follow me just to be safe there, like, that’s totally understandable and nothing to be sorry about. We all do it. There’s a metric fuckton of people in Batfandom that I probably WOULD follow or read or interact with if it weren’t for the fact that I see them talk and joke and reblog a lot with Big Name Batcest shippers and the like, and I mean, lol hey I’m an incest survivor who hates incest with a passion few will ever understand and seeing it pop up on my dash in posts that talk or laugh about it as something fluffy or sweet or harmless would bum me super hard. So it’s like welp, in every other respect it looks like me and this one person could sync up brainwaves and make like platonic soulmates through our next several lifetimes buuuuuuut they’ve got incest-fluff in their general sphere and that’s a dealbreaker for me so guess we’ll never know now cuz I’m gonna keep standing firmly over here. *shrugs* Does that kinda feel like a waste or a shame sometimes? Yeah, maybe, but like. Your priorities are what they are and if you’re happy with your priorities, sticking with them is the clear choice and not something anyone should kick themselves for.

I mean, I might happen to think someone’s priorities are wrong and bad but I’m allowed to just like you’re allowed to think the same about mine or my mutuals’? It’s just...when that’s the ultimate issue, people just having wildly in opposition priorities, there’s just like....not a whole lot to say there beyond ‘hey I think your priorities suck,’ ‘no, YOUR priorities suck,’ ‘well I think your FACE sucks,’ ‘how dare you, I got this face from my MOM, you giant bipedal pitstain, have you no shame’ etc etc ad nauseam.

Anyway, I’ve officially exhausted this topic so exhaustively I’ve now made myself exhausted enough to go back to sleep cuz it’s still not even 5 am lol, and this is all just brain vomit now anyway so in conclusion, it’s all whatever dude, you do you, I’ll do me, we’ll always have Paris, and that’s what you missed on Glee.

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chiseler · 5 years ago

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A Palestinian Guide to Surviving a Quarantine: On Faith, Humor and ‘Dutch Candy’

Call it a ‘quarantine’, a ‘shelter-in-place’, a ‘lockdown’ or a ‘curfew’, we Palestinians have experienced them all, though not at all voluntarily.

Personally, the first 23 years of my life were lived in virtual ‘lockdown’. My father’s ‘quarantine’ was experienced much earlier, as did his father’s ‘shelter-in-place’ before him. They both died and were buried in Gaza’s cemeteries without ever experiencing true freedom outside of their refugee camp in Gaza.

Currently in Gaza, the quarantine has a different name. We call it ‘siege’, also known as ‘blockade’.

In fact, all of Palestine has been in a state of ‘lockdown’ since the late 1940s when Israel became a state and the Palestinian homeland was erased by Zionist colonialists with the support of their Western benefactors.

That lockdown intensified in 1967 when Israel, now a powerful state with a large army and strong allies, occupied the remaining parts of Palestine - East Jerusalem, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.

Under this lockdown, the Palestinian freedom of movement was curtailed

to the extent that Palestinians required permits from the Israeli military to leave the Occupied Territories or to return home, to move about from one town to the other, and, at times, to cross a single Israeli military checkpoint or a fortified wall.

In Palestine, we don’t call our imprisonment a lockdown, but a ‘military occupation’ and ‘apartheid’.

As for ‘shelter-in-place’, in Palestine, we have a different name for it. We call it a ‘military curfew’.

Since I was a child, I learned to listen intently to orders barked out by Israeli military officers as they swept through our refugee camp in Gaza declaring or easing military curfews. This ritual often happened late at night.

“People of Nuseirat, per orders of the Israeli military you are now under curfew. Anyone who violates orders will be shot immediately,” the terrifying words, always communicated through a loudspeaker in broken Arabic, were a staple during the First Palestinian Uprising (Intifada) of 1987.

The period between 1987 to 1993 was a virtual ‘lockdown’. Thousands of people, mostly children, were killed for failing to respect the rules of their collective imprisonment.

In Gaza, even when a full military curfew was not in place, we rarely left our small and crowded neighborhoods, let alone our refugee camps. We were all haunted by the fear that we may not be able to make it home by 8p.m., the time designated by the Israeli military for all of us to return home.

Every day, ten or fifteen minutes after the nightly curfew set in, we would hear the crackling and hissing of bullets as they whistled through the air from various distances. Automatically, we would conclude that some poor soul - a worker, a teacher, or a rowdy teenager - missed his chance by a few minutes, and paid a price for it.

Now that nearly half of the population of planet Earth are experiencing some form of ‘curfew’ or another, I would like to share a few suggestions on how to survive the prolonged confinement, the Palestinian way.

Think Ahead

Since we knew that a complete lockdown, or a military curfew, was always pending, we tried to anticipate the intensity and duration of it and prepare accordingly.

For example, when the Israeli army killed one or more refugees, we knew in advance that mass protests would follow, thus more killings. In these situations, a curfew was imminent.

Number one priority was to ensure that all family members congregated at home or stayed within close proximity so that they could rush in as fast as possible when the caravan of Israeli military jeeps and tanks came thundering, opening fire at anyone or anything within sight.

Lesson number one: Always think ahead and prepare for a longer lockdown than the initial one declared by your city or state.

Stay Calm

My father had a bad temper, although a very kind heart. When curfews were about to start, he would enter into a near-panic state. A chain smoker with obsessive, although rational fear that one of his five boys would eventually be killed, he would walk around the house in a useless rush, not knowing what to do next.

Typically, my mother would come in, rational and calculating. She would storm the kitchen to assess what basic supplies were missing, starting with the flour, sugar and olive oil.

Knowing that the first crackdown by the Israelis would be on water supplies and electricity, she would fill several plastic containers of water, designating some for tea, coffee and cooking, and others for dishes and washing clothes.

Per her orders, we would rush to the nearby stores to make small but necessary purchases - batteries for the flashlight and the transistor radio, cigarettes for my dad, and a few VHS videotapes which we would watch over and again, whether the curfew lasted for a few days or a few weeks.

Lesson number two: Take control of the situation - do not panic - and assign specific responsibilities to every family member. This strengthens the family unit and sets the stage for collective solidarity desperately required under these circumstances.

Preserve Your Water

I cannot emphasize this enough. Even if you think that a water crisis is not impending, do not take chances.

It is easy to feel invincible and fully prepared on the first day of quarantine - or military curfew. Many times, we lived to regret that false sense of readiness, as we drank too much tea or squandered our dishwashing water supplies too quickly.

In this case, you have a serious problem, especially during the summer months when you cannot count on rainwater to make up for the deficit.

Years after the end of the Intifada, my father revealed to us that many a time, him and mom used the rainwater they collected in buckets throughout the house, including the leaked roofs for our drinking supplies, even when there was no electricity or gas to boil the water beforehand.

In retrospect, this explains the many bouts of diarrhea we experienced, despite his assurances that they had painstakingly removed all bird droppings from the salvaged water.

Lesson number three: Cautiously use your water supplies during a quarantine, and never, under any circumstance, drink rainwater or, at least, keep diarrhea pills handy.

Ration Your Food

The same logic that applies to water applies to food. It goes without saying that any acquired food would have to cover the basics first. For example, flour, which we used to make bread, comes before bananas, and sugar, which we consumed abundantly with tea, comes before Dutch candy.

I made that mistake more than once, not because of my love for the imported Dutch candy which we purchased from Abu Sa’dad’s store, located in the center of the camp. The truth is, my brothers and I played a strange form of candy poker which kept us entertained for many hours. I dreaded running out of my precious supplies before the curfew was over, thus subjugating myself to potential humiliation of having to auction everything else I owned - including my small radio - to stay in the game.

My poor mother was devastated numerous times by the horrible choices we made when we rushed to buy ‘essentials’.

Lesson number four: Agree in advance on what classifies as ‘essential food’, and consume your food in a rational way. Also, if you are lucky enough to locate Dutch candy in whatever version of the Abu Sa’dad’s store, in your town, do not gamble it all in one day.

Find Sources of Entertainment

If electricity is still available, then you still have the option of watching television. For us, Indian movies, especially those starring Amitabh Bachchan, were the number one option. Imagine my disappointment when our beloved movie star, who helped us through numerous military curfews in Gaza, was photographed grinning with right-wing Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during the latter’s visit to India in 2018.

If electricity is cut off, be ready with alternative options: books, free wrestling, living-room soccer (with the ball preferably made from stuffed-up socks contributed by all family members), and, of course, candy poker.

Lesson number five: The key is to have more than one form of entertainment and to be prepared for every eventuality, including power outages as a form of collective punishment.

Find the Humor in Grim Situations

Don’t focus on the negatives; there is no point or wisdom in that. Emphasizing the grimness of a situation can only contribute to the feeling of defeat and powerlessness that are already generated by the lockdown. There will be plenty of time in which you can look back, reflect, and even bemoan your unfortunate circumstance.

But, during the curfew itself is when you actually need your sense of humor most. Take things lightly - laugh at your miserable situation, if you must. Forgive yourself for not being perfect, for panicking when you should have been composed, or for forcing your younger brother to gamble his underwear when he runs out of Dutch candy.

Difficult situations can offer the kind of scenarios that can be interpreted in two extreme ways: either extremely tragic or extremely funny; opt for the latter whenever you can, because as long as you laugh, as long as your spirit remains unbroken, your humanity remains intact.

Lesson number six: Be funny, don’t take life too seriously, share a laugh with others, and let humor inject hope in every hour and every day of your quarantine.

Hold Tighter to Your Faith

Whether you are Muslim, Christian, Jewish, or any other faith; whether you are an atheist, agnostic, or practice any form of spirituality, philosophy or belief system, find comfort in your faith and beliefs.

Since all mosques in our refugee camp were shut down, if not raided during a military curfew, the call for prayer, which we heard five times during each day, was permanently silenced.

To keep the call for prayer going, we would sneak to the roof of our houses, carefully scan the area for any Israeli soldiers, and collectively make the call for prayer whenever it was required. Volunteers included my English teacher, who was communist and claimed that he did not believe in God, myself, and Nabil, the neighbor boy with the massive head and the most unpleasant voice.

In curfews, we developed a different relationship with God: He became a personal and more intimate companion, as we often prayed in total darkness, whispered our verses so very cautiously as not to be heard by pesky soldiers. And, even those who hardly prayed before the curfew kept up with all five prayers during the lockdown.

Lesson number seven: Let your values guide you during your hours of loneliness. And if you volunteer to make a call for prayer (or recite your religious hymns) please be honest with yourself: if you have no sense of rhythm or if your voice has the pitch of an angry alley cat, for God’s sake, leave the job to someone else.

In Conclusion ..

I hope that under no circumstances you will ever hear these ominous words: “You are now under curfew. Anyone who violates orders will be shot immediately.” I also hope that this COVID-19 quarantine will make us kinder to each other and will make us emerge from our homes better people, ready to take on global challenges while united in our common faith, collective pain and a renewed sense of love for our environment.

And when it’s all over, think of Palestine, for her people have been ‘quarantined’ for 71 years and counting.

by Ramzy Baroud

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jmoye887-blog · 6 years ago

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Cognitive Biases

Greetings, rationality seekers. My name is Joe. I’m a Psychology major, and I have a big interest in how our inherent cognitive processes limit our capacity to accurately assess the world. I love debate and thinking existentially, so it is important to me to become the most objective/rational person I can be. If you would like to know more about me, see my aboutme page. In this blog I am going to be discussing cognitive biases. Cognitive bias is a mistake in reasoning, evaluating, remembering, or processing information. Essentially, it is a subconscious/subjective form of judgment that affects decisions you make. This subjectivity results from our own experiences of the world. We all have our reasons we perceive the world the way we do. We want to hold onto our beliefs regardless of contradicting information.

This blog is to help you to understand cognitive biases, apply strategies to consciously minimize their affect, and, in turn, make better decisions. It is impossible to eliminate their affect, they are engraved deeply into the neural patterns of your brain. In order to minimize their effect, the emphasis of this blog is going to focus on the source of cognitive biases. Why do you hold on so strongly to your beliefs? What makes you miss pieces of information that are obvious? Why do you often sense/perceive what you expect? This blog is going to look at the physiological and psychological reasons for such mistakes. Once you understand the underlying reasons for your irrationality, you can catch yourself being bias in the moment, and approach problems with minimal distortion.I don’t think it is possible for one to completely eliminate their natural cognitive biases, but it is possible to minimize their effect.

According to www.psychologytoday.com our perceptions are "easily influenced," and that influence has potentially "dangerous" implications. Confirmation bias is when you interpret information in a way that confirms your preexisting beliefs, or you simply ignore contradicting information. For example, a teenager who becomes addicted to drugs might keep their grades up, so their parents ignores the behavioral and mood changes. Motivation has a dangerous impact on our perceptions as well. We do not want to believe our child or loved one could be suicidal.

Some of our mistakes in perceiving are not entirely our fault. Our cognitive biases can be exploited by media and advertisements. For example, according to www.psychologytoday.com, "as hundreds of thousands of people were dying in Syria, the media kept us focused on Gaza/Israel, sending nearly 700 journalists to that region, and hardly any to the neighboring states with masses amounts of people being murdered." The media narrowed our view, and we missed a lot of important information.

It is very important for your judgments of people to be as accurate as possible. It is how we decide who to befriend, associate with, and who to avoid. However, we have a strong bias that affects how we perceive people. This error is known as the fundamental attribution error. It is when we attribute someone's behavior to some internal characteristic, rather than external circumstances that caused them to do what they did. Not everything someone does is telling of their nature. For example, people may attribute someone's poor grades to "laziness," when really they have some type of cognitive or intellectual deficit. Awareness of this bias should cause you to not jump to conclusions so quickly, and consider possible alternatives before assuming negative things about someone.

Understanding cognitive biases can be difficult. You must process why you often make mistakes in processing information, while you are often unaware you are making a mistake. Do you see a problem? We are trying to dig into our subconscious, what we often consider "common sense," when really we are making a mistake in processing. It takes effort and interest to understand cognitive biases, however, I believe there is good reason for everyone to want to be educated on cognitive biases. They affect your personal life, relationships, goals, career, and many aspect of one's life. With enough effort, one can minimize their effect and make better decisions/judgments. I know most people consider themselves rational--and i don’t mean to sound condescending, but the reality is, everyone is naturally irrational. It takes effort to attain rationality, but the effort will lead to less feelings of confusion, impulsiveness, and ultimately empower you.

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edenfenixblogs · 6 months ago

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Thank you @strkid

Thank you for being the living example of the literal exact type of person I am condemning the most.

I am known pretty unanimously around here for being measured and kind and sympathetic. I have many people who have not agreed with me and who I have patiently worked with to help find common ground. What I am about to say is not indicative of my online presence typically. It is a unique reaction to you and your absolute and total audacity.

So thank you. Thank you for proving what I am talking about:

You absolutely unhinged, violently antisemitic monster.

First off, if I didn’t have more to get to in this post and if you deserved better (which you do not) I would say the following more tactfully. But I can tell already that you are incapable of looking inward and choosing to better yourself or mend your relationship with Jewish people or unpack your own biases. So, sorry not sorry, you get the most blunt statements I have ever spoken to anyone. Again, I cannot be clear enough that this is about you specifically and a reaction to your specific, gaslighting, audacious sense of entitlement.

What were you expecting from me after leaving your comment. I replied asking you to explain further, because it seemed from your comment like you were saying that you cannot be antisemitic because in the past people you know stood up to Nazis—you know, the literal bare minimum for any activist. I must have misunderstood. That’s like saying you can’t be racist because you have black friends.

I was also confused because…how was there a Nazi at your encampment stabbing the poor wee baby protestors if you don’t allow Nazis at your encampments? And what are you doing in your encampments that supports the Jewish right to exist anywhere as per your comment? I genuinely found this quite confusing.

Surely that couldn’t be what you were saying, I thought. So I asked you to elaborate further. You failed to reply. So I had a little looksie at your blog.

And I gotta say…

Holy Jew-hatred, Batman!

I wanna be very clear. There are a lot of good people who think they are well informed on this topic and that they are helping Palestinians and being measured in their critiques of Israel. A lot of these people routinely miss the mark and make life harder for Jews inside and outside of Israel with their rhetoric. But these people are ok with me. These are people with empathetic hearts who are honestly trying to help and are open to growing when they realize they are causing harm instead.

I remain eternally grateful for @stephobrien and @jellymarbles and @noneedforbloodpressure and others for remaining extremely committed to Palestinian safety and justice while also learning how to identify when their activism tends toward antisemitism and curtailing it.

You are not like them. You are just an antisemite who cares much, much more about your own personal image as A Good Person™️ than you ever did about Jews or Palestinians.

You do have the same garden variety antisemitism that is prevalent on most pro-Palestine blogs, that is true.

For example, you post things reducing the war to a fandom-like discourse.

As if Taylor Swift is a pawn you can “win” for your side or as if a single musical artist could change the future of a region entrenched in literally thousands of years of conflict.

Not to mention the fact that Taylor HAS gone to an event supporting Anera, an organization that provides aid to Gaza that I wholeheartedly support and have even promoted on my own blog several times.

What Taylor has NOT done is speak out on behalf of Jews, 10/7, or against Hamas in any way. And guess what? SHE DOESNT HAVE TO. Would I like it if she did anything to show she gives a shit about Jews? Sure! But it’s not her job.

And I appreciate her staying in her lane and, when she did publicly support aid for Palestine, it was for a well-vetted charity. It’s kind of alarming that you not only haven’t bothered to educate yourself about the long history of conflict in the region outside of your own narrow viewpoint. (That’s par for the course in terms of public engagement with this cause right now and is annoying but ultimately correctable and forgivable) But you haven’t even bothered to educate yourself about the specific people you are talking about and how they’ve behaved over the past seven months.

How on earth am I supposed to trust you to be a reliable source of information on people you oppose in a centuries-long struggle when you can’t even be reliable about high-profile figures who are acting for the cause you supposedly support??? It is the lowest hanging fruit there is.

But ok. Maybe that was a one off. Maybe that was one misjudged post. It happens. I’ve certainly not been perfect in judging every single post, although I do make a point to at least try to always use basic media literacy and vet my sources and information appropriately. A good way to see how someone actually thinks and speaks about Jews is to just…search for it. Hmmmmm… let’s see how you feel about Jews.

Well, you certainly love to tokenize us—elevating only the voices of Jews who support your cause, especially when they criticize other Jews. Because that way you get to make blanket statements about Jews by proxy without actually saying the thing yourself.

OK, a striking visual lionizing your cause. Fine. I have my issues with how this is couched,especially how it seems to celebrate western college students wearing Palestinian ethnicity, personal loss, and culture as a costume.

But hey. Don’t judge a book by its cover right?

What is the text beneath it?

Oh I see. Jews are really terrified constantly, but for no reason! You guys it’s fine! Good news, fellow Jews! We’re just overreacting! It’s not as if we’ve been living in an era of well documented antisemitism! It’s not like Jews on college campuses are being attacked by their teachers and fellow students or made to fear for their safety! It’s not like this wave of antisemitism kicked off with a literal massacre of our people while others justified and celebrated it! We’re just babies who want attention! Good! Look! This user even found a Jew to cite who says this stuff.

Surely if you can find someone who is Jewish to agree with you, the opinions and feelings of the vast majority of Jews who disagree with that view can be discounted! Just like how Candace Owen’s speaks for all Black people and JK Rowling speaks for all feminists! That’s how it works, right? That’s activism, right???? And anyone who disagrees is just a conservative in leftist clothing! (In case you have the same amount of basic critical thinking skills as @strkid, I want to state explicitly that this paragraph and the previous one is full of sarcasm and the linked sources elaborate on how all the statements in it are false)

Surely this is an isolated incident? Right? One instance of such behavior is terrifyingly irresponsible. But like… nobody’s perfect, right?

Surely they don’t just look at someone and say, “That one there! That’s a Jew! Free pass to spout bullshit and no further source evaluations are necessary!” Surely they don’t promote extremely small religious extremist groups who are widely condemned by the vast majority of the Jewish community worldwide, right?

Oh, wait, no. They do exactly that.

Jesus Christ, dude. Really? Do you even know how to do a google search? Have you looked into what a majority of Jews actually think or feel about anyrhing? I’m going to guess no. I think that’s a pretty safe guess.

But ok. Fine. This user has a problem with identifying a legitimate representative of the Jewish experience. There are worse sins. This, I could still forgive. This could be unlearned.

At least they respect Jewish trauma enough not to weaponize it against us—wait never mind. They absolutely do not.

Look. Of course, as I have stated repeatedly, I do not and will never condone the circumstances in Gaza at this time. But you have to know this is wrong, right? You do understand that the tragedy facing Palestinian civilians is unconscionable and a humanitarian outrage. But you also must understand that The Holocaust was about more than just shoving starving people into overcrowded bunks, right? You understand that the Holocaust is a source of permanent and ongoing generational trauma that impacts every single Jew in the world, right? You understand that what made the Holocaust horrible was the slow descent of the society around us into a horde of hateful enemies who used our literal bodies as livestock and forced us to work building and seeing weapons and clothes for our abusers who worked us until our bodies gave out. And then they used the silver and gold fillings from our teeth, and the metal from our glasses, and the skin and fat from our bodies to make soap and weapons and leather and jewelry, right? You get how that’s something that is dangerous to misuse and reference as an outsider who lacks any sense of the weight of that trauma.

Because I’m not getting the sense you do actually understand this.

@strkid only gives a shit about Jews when they can use us a literal human shield, not unlike Hamas itself. “Don’t punish us for making college campuses demonstrably unsafe for Jewish students! You might hurt Jews too! Just like in that one time they did in a totally different protest several decades ago! All protests are exactly the same!” (Again, this is sarcasm)

You’re like the fucking Wizard of Oz begging us not to look behind the curtain so we don’t see you for the charlatan that you are. But I see right behind that curtain.

You’re not good enough at slight-of-hand to pull off the magic trick you’re attempting. You want us to care about dead Jews from several decades ago at the expense of Jewish people living through modern day antisemitism—that you are perpetuating! Because Jews who are currently alive today are telling you en masse that you are the exact kind of person who is causing the most harm to our community. Not because you support Palestine, but because you hate us.

The thing about people like @strkid is that they are perfectly ok referencing the Holocaust. They just don’t like it when we do it.

You’re a textbook example of how non-Jews use our deaths to support their own causes yet refuse to listen to us while we are alive. You are the exact person that People Love Dead Jews was written for.

I’m so disgusted by you that I don’t have time to unpack this one. And before you come at me for dismissing the Nakba, I have said before and will say again that the Nakba was an inexcusable tragedy that I condemn as much as the ongoing bombing of Gaza and Rafah.

But you want to talk about decontextualizing history? How about the Jewish exodus from the Muslim world that occurred at the exact same time as the Nakba, only three years after the Holocaust? Seems like some textbook propaganda and misinformation and one-sided sourcing and narratives to me.

Do you think that might have anything to do with why Jews at the time were so desperate to hold on to Israel? Do you think being murdered out of Europe and expelled/cleansed from the rest of SWANA/MENA might have a little something to do with the choice of fight in the ongoing Jewish calculus of fight or flight.

It certainly wasn’t a first resort. It’s not like there was an abundance of choices left in the “flight” column.

But fine. Even now, you might claim this user hasn’t really defended Hamas or acts of terror against Jews or even tried to minimize or erase Jewish relationship to Jerusalem.

Unfortunately, you’d be wrong.

You’re just another fucking Hitler-loving Nazi. And for you to imply that I owe you one iota of respect or gratitude is among the most offensive things I can imagine.

2 am rant cuz I can’t sleep:

I’ve stated repeatedly that I’m pro-Palestine and pro-peace, so I obviously want a two sided, negotiated ceasefire and permanent peace for all. I’ve repeatedly stated that I do not condone the degree of heavy bombing taking place in Gaza.

But it’s currently 2:15 in the morning and I am haunted. I’m haunted by the fact that the world saw the brutal attack on Jews and celebrated. I’m haunted by the number of high l-profile celebrities who felt moved to speak out for Palestine — wearing flags and pins and signing demands for Israel to stop bombing, but who said nothing about the dead and tortured and kidnapped Jews.

Yes, what is happening in Palestine is and continues to be a tragedy.

But apparently what happened and is happening to Jews worldwide and Israelis of all religions simply isn’t. At least not enough of one. Not enough of one to move these high-profile folks to speak out for us. Not enough of a tragedy to say the names of the hostages, including one forced to give birth while kidnapped by terrorists. Not enough of a tragedy to condemn the violence happening against Jews. Not enough to speak out on behalf of a 20-year-old singer made to fear for her life because she dared to be from Israel and sing about her own trauma instead of, idk, bursting into flame or shutting up or whatever the mob wanted her to do.

No. What happens to us isn’t a tragedy. It’s a nuisance. It’s a nuisance to have to care about Jews. It gets in the way of everyone else feeling good about their “radical activism” and self-aggrandizing bravery. People of all levels and types of fame. All of whom say they only want peace and an end to pain. Yet when they mention pain, it’s always and only the Palestinian flag. When they want a ceasefire, it’s always an only in reference to Palestine. But they wouldn’t be caught dead asking for an end to Hamas or Hezbollah bombs or even acknowledging that they exist. All calls for peace involve asking Israel to lay down arms but no call for anyone attack Israel, Israelis, or Jews worldwide to do the same.

From large creators to small creators to people in day to day life, non-Jews around the world have made clear that it would be more convenient for them if we Jews just died. If we stopped ever defending ourselves or speaking up or being sad in public.

The vast majority of people speaking out would or will view this post as a justification of violence. But it’s not. It’s a condemnation of complicity from people who claim to care about peace. It is a condemnation of those who claim to be against antisemitism yet refuse to listen when Jews point out how they are contributing to and spreading more antisemitism. People and institutions worldwide have failed Jews everywhere.

Cats Blanchett

Mark Ruffalo

Billie Eilish

Viola Davis

Lena Heady

Susan Sarandon

Ava DuVernay

Hozier

Sara Ramirez

Annie Lennox

Cynthia Nixon

Angelina Jolie

Multiple UN groups and resolutions

College students and professors across the world

Friends I’ve had for 8 years who don’t even respond to messages that I have moved out of state or even spoken to me in at least five months

So many people who are so eager to read every bit of pro-Palestine news that exists and condemn every action from Israel.

And yet…

Before the bombings. Before the reprisals. Before all the violence from Israel: where were they? All these people who so desperately beg for peace (as defined by the end of Israeli aggression only): where were they when it was just dead Jews? Where were the Instagram posts and educational content and in depth analyses of Israeli trauma and history? Where were the condemnations of Hamas? Where were those who are moved to speak for anyone and everyone but Jews?

Are we really supposed to believe any of you actually want peace? When you chant for the globalization of terror tactics that traumatized a generation of Israeli Jews? When you fail to acknowledge Jewish history in any way except to minimize it?

Before the bombing campaign, where were the red carpet statement pins and gowns featuring Jewish stars?

How are we Jews anywhere in the world literally ever supposed to believe that you’re not actively cheering for our deaths? Maybe not in front of our faces, but certainly behind our backs. We know. We know you’re afraid to be less than tactful in front of us, but that you describe our rapes and murders and social exclusion and kidnappings as “unfortunate but necessary.”

I’m reminded of when Israel was first created. At a time where every Jew on earth was traumatized directly because the Holocaust firsthand, Britain left the territory of mandatory Palestine and the UN allowed for the creation of a Jewish state. And then proceeded to heckle the traumatized survivors for handling its creation poorly. The Nakba is a tragedy and an outrage and I’ll never deny that.

But…y’all are no different from the people who stood on the sidelines as Israel was first created. Why was it up to an actively traumatized people who had very recently (and after a continuous 2,000 year period of expulsions and pogroms and murders) been slaughtered on an industrial scale to somehow create a perfect and stable government in a land where people despised them?

The world needs to own up to the fact that everything that ever went wrong in Israel’s creation is a direct result of the continuous and still ongoing contempt for Jews by all the other countries that could have stepped in to help and provide Jews with a guarantee of safety at any time in the last 2,000 years in general but also since 1934 specifically. And you didn’t. Your great grandparents and grandparents and parents all didn’t do jack shit. And you are following in their footsteps. You are all doing just as they did: standing on the sidelines and heckling the Jews you don’t like for fighting back too aggressively.

But what exactly have you or anyone else done to help Jews in your communities or in Israel to not feel like caged animals forced to fight for survival? Like wild beasts you let loose for slaughter in a coliseum for your own enjoyment? At what point have you worked to provide Jews with other options? How have you made the Jews in your life feel safe or seen during this time? How have you started to deconstruct the harmful anti-Jewish bias you inherited from the people you love?

Is it ok that Netanyahu and the Likud government is bombing Palestine to the extent it is currently doing? Of course not. And I’ll never say otherwise.

But aside from yelling “hey stop it!” at Israel or “you’re complicit!” at Jews who fail to join your chanting, what exactly have you done at any point since this started to make the world safer for any of us?

Because from what I can see, the vast majority of you have done nothing. And every Jew I’ve spoken to in the last half a year has seen the exact same nothing.

Too many of you are too concerned with being on the right side of history. Most of you aren’t famous actors or musicians or whatever. Most of you are just people. History won’t remember you individually. Who knows what history will say about the movements of which you were a part? My guess is that you’ll be called passionate and outraged and sympathetic, but ultimately disorganized and misguided.

But you know who will remember you? Every Jew you’ve encountered since 10/7. We will remember each individual we saw who celebrated our death or ghosted us or made us feel unwelcome in our own lives.

We will remember you forever. And not fondly.

#antisemites to remember #antisemitism #leftist antisemitism #academic antisemitism #media literacy

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