#to the idf any person that moves in Palestine is a terrorist

[limelocked]

Mad the pope condemned your murder of two christian women sheltering in as church aren’t you

[boreal-sea]

It's actually almost impossible to be in a position to want to openly call out Israel, call it wrong for the way it has treated Palestinians for almost the whole time it's existed, without calling for Israel to be destroyed, and to be against American antisemitism because it feels like that category doesn't exist?

I think:

Zionism is the belief that Jews are native to the Levant and deserve self-determination in their homeland

Israel deserves to exist just like any other country

Israel has been abusing Palestinians for decades and should be held responsible for this abuse

Israel is the one with power between Israel and Palestine

Hamas is a violent antisemitic terrorist group and benefits no one

American leftists have become violently antisemitic since Oct 7th

Israel has lived in fear of the surrounding Arab states since its founding while also abusing its Palestinian neighbors, which further fuels hatred against Israelis, and fans the flames of their fear. All of these statements are true. Israeli fear is valid, and Palestinian anger is valid, too. The antisemitism of the surrounding countries isn't valid, and they're a big player in this conflict too.

So I guess, if that's your belief set too, let's be friends?

Reblogs are on for now, unless people start to get antisemitic...

Israel is wrong about a lot of things. It needs major reform as a country. It owes Palestinians reparations. Netanyahu needs to be removed from office along with all of his right-wing friends. Settlements in the West Bank need to cease, Israeli military presence needs to be withdrawn, and a long-term land-back initiative needs to be enacted, one that doesn't involve kicking people out of their homes right now, but rather returning that land and property to Palestinians after the Israelis currently living there move out. Israel could absolutely incentivize Israelis to move back into Israeli territory if they wanted to, just like they incentivized them to move into Palestine in the first place. I also think Israel's forced draft is wrong and should stop. The Kahanists and extremist settlers need to be dealt with. The current government of Israel does not want to do any of the above. This is a problem.

Hamas is wrong. Their only goal is the eradication of Jews and Israel; they currently do not have an ideology that contributes to peace in the region. They refuse to cooperate with other Palestinians trying to form an actual government. They got elected on the anger of abused Gazans and then stole that power and have never given it back. They treat the citizens of Gaza like pawns, they put them in harm's way because they know every Palestinian death at the hands of the IDF makes them support Hamas more. Gazans deserve freedom from Israel AND from Hamas.

Palestine deserves the 1967 borders back. It deserves a strong, unified government that represents its people fairly. They can't do that with organizations like Hamas undermining them at every turn. Netanyahu is partially to blame for this! He didn't create Hamas but he has admitted to supporting them, another reason he needs to be gone from power.

There is hate on both sides. Personally, a lot of Palestinian hate is understandable given how they've been abused since the Nakba. I get it. I get why Gazans voted for Hamas for the same reason I get why Americans voted for Trump. I empathize with Gazans; Israel has been undeniably abusing them for decades, even after "withdrawing". Gazans just want to be free. West Bank Palestinians just want to be free, to have their land back. Palestinians deserve freedom.

On the other hand, it's unfair to ignore that a lot of the hate aimed at Israelis is specifically antisemitism and that many groups and countries in the area are using antisemitism to inflame Palestinian anger. Hamas is one such group. So is Hezbollah. Both are funded by the surrounding Arab states, which are also fueled by antisemitism. These countries didn't want Israel established in the first place - not because it was colonialism, but because it would be Jewish.

And on the subject of colonialism, no, I don't think a Jewish state in the Levant is inherently colonialism. I DO think that the modern state of Israel was established through the mechanisms and violence of settler colonialism though, and the settlements in the West Bank absolutely ARE settler expansionism. They are immoral. They are stealing from Palestinians. There is a lot of harm Israel has committed, period.

I hold Israel responsible for its treatment of Palestinians. For treating Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza like second-class citizens. For occupying their land, for allowing "legal" and illegal settlements on their land. I hold Israel responsible for the anger of Palestinians, too. Organizations like Hamas probably would have come into existence regardless of how Israel treated Palestinians, because Hamas is founded on antisemitism, however, I think you do have to place at least a little blame on Israel.

I hold the surrounding states responsible for their antisemitic treatment of Israel. For funding the endless rockets of Hamas and Hezbollah. For encouraging their suicide bombers and terrorism. For keeping the region destabilized so Israelis never know a single moment of peace. There is a reason Israel forces its citizens to join the military, even though I think that is in and of itself an immoral thing to do to your people.

[therealslimsanji]

I’m sorry for the incredibly long ask, but this is pretty much the only place I can voice my thoughts on the matter without getting attacked by those who now hate the OPLA cast!

I genuinely don’t understand how Taz, Iñaki, and Jacob are getting cancelled and sent death threats for what they’ve said (part of me feels like people have been ITCHING to cancel Jacob for something because he’s black)

Iñaki’s post was about the earthquake in Mexico and NOWHERE in Jacob’s post did it say anything that was pro-Israel! All Jacob said was “Just because someone is Jewish, doesn’t mean they support what the Israeli government is doing. Just because someone is Palestinian, doesn’t mean you should label them as a terrorist. This conflict is putting innocent lives at risk, so let’s continue to speak up against violence while also having compassion for both Palestinian and Jewish people!”

WANTING INNOCENT PEOPLE (no matter where they are from) TO NOT DIE ISN’T A BAD THING and I don’t get how people got “I support Israel and I’m pro-IDF” out of Jacob’s statement???

Now with Taz, he definitely could’ve handled the situation better after getting called out, but I’m not going to cancel him or wish death on him for simply sharing a link that supports THE INNOCENT CIVILIANS of both Palestine and Israel! The British Red Cross has been helping Palestine for years and I’ve heard that sometimes TBRC is the only way they can get more help! I wish Taz would’ve just deleted the link from his bio and not said anything because not everything you do needs an explanation or a Twitter post made about it. Sometimes, moving in silence is the best option. Or if he felt the need to post about it, he definitely should’ve worded it better, but the death threats being sent to him are uncalled for!

I’m sorry if this seems out of line, but I feel like some people are so hung up on rooting for one side that they don’t see those who need help on the other. I’m all for “Free Palestine”, but that doesn’t mean I want every single person from Israel to never ever get help and die right where they stand (now the ones participating in all the violence against Palestine and making fun of their suffering, they can choke)

People on Twitter labeling Taz, Iñaki, and Jacob as Zionists are REACHING! It’s like that “any Kpop star that watches Made in Abyss and anime in general is a pedophile” situation all over again! These keyboard warriors need to realize that words have meaning and those are two labels that someone could never come back from if this had spread to those outside of the OPLA fandom! Now if they were voicing their full support of the IDF, THEN WE’D HAVE A SERIOUS PROBLEM ON OUR HANDS, but all of this over Taz running a marathon for an organization and a badly worded tweet???

Also, I’ve seen so many people saying OPLA should be cancelled or they will boycott it from now on, but I bet this whole situation will blow over by next month (hopefully sooner if Taz puts the Twitter fingers away) and those same ones will be right there when a trailer for season 2 comes out!

Honestly I'm so mentally tired of this right now and can't form a coherent thought on the matter outside of what I've already said on other posts and what not. I'm just so incredibly disappointed with people. And thinking about them tryna come back to the OPLA Fandom and go back to being fans of the cast after the bullshit they pulled pisses me off. I know that's petty but idc at this point.

Taz has said himself that he tries to be the peacekeeper so I'm sure the tweet was meant to try and soothe things but he didn't accomplish that goal. I think if he had slept on it more then he would've been able to word things better. He reacted just like everyone else did.

But right now, I'm just so fed up with Twitter warriors who act all righteous online but probably don't actually do shit for a cause in real life.

[cat-downthestreet]

you are not some uwu cryptid queer you literally vomit imperialist propaganda from your dad who made himself a tool of imperialism. you are plain and out Stupid please remedy that. read the jakarta method, read kill anything that moves, educate yourself on the violence the u.s exports to the rest of the world, from the Philippines to palestine to south America to the u.s where the police trained by the idf kill black and brown people with impunity.

Wonderful. Another person who didn't actually read my post.

All I said was that there used to be terrorists in Gaza. There aren't anymore.

Israel is evil and just committing genocide for fun at this point. They don't have a good reason.

However, it is important to know what led to this situation.

And just because the US government sucks ass doesn't mean everyone who ever worked under it agrees with that. What kind of logic is that?

And to be clear, my dad hates both the military and Israel for what's happening now. But he is a historian, and understanding history is key to understanding how things got so bad in the first place.

If your immediate response to me making a post that not only included a line explicitly stating that you should correct any REAL misinformation I might be spreading is to try to bully me off this platform, that says a lot more about you than it does me.

Free Palestine.

[lizardbytheriver]

You’re an ignorant person. You don’t know what Israel wants, you don’t know what every Israeli person wants, you don’t know what all Jewish people want. Please just stop posting like you know everything, it’s exhausting.

I think I have a pretty clear idea of what Israel wants. Israel just killed thousands of people, kept pushing the Gazan population downward, is advocating for Egypt to open the border, has plans to develop/resettle the Gaza strip, has repeatedly denied calls for a "two-state" solution, etc. Its not hard to figure out. Israel wants Gaza (and the West Bank). Israel does not want Palestinians or a Palestine Identity existing within "its borders". This isn't difficult to understand. Its expansionist and colonial, much the same the USA and Canada were. I never said I know what every individual Israeli or individual Jewish Person wants. I think I could be more vocal that the crimes of Israel are not the crimes of Judaism or the entire Jewish People, rather it is the crimes of settler colonial ideology. There are Jewish Organizations fighting for Palestinians. There are Holocaust Survivors who support Palestine, the Palestinian People, and Palestinian Statehood. There are Israelis who get beaten-up for flying a Palestinian Flag. There are Israelis being reprimanded and even imprisoned for humanizing Palestinians. There are Israelis going to jail for not serving the IDF (and by extension for not killing Palestinians). I actually have a lot of sympathy for Israelis who were born in Israel or were moved to Israel at a young age. Because... you were forced to take part in colonization without even your consent. And then comes the topic of decolonization... which is always scary. Because what about my land? What about my home? Would they lose it all in decolonization? The answer is... probably not. The answer is also... housing ingeneral ain't great in Israel, anyway. And there is always an irony in these questions.... because those homes and land were already stolen. And a redistribution/restructuring of land is not only morally justifiable but also entirely necessary. Sorry for the tangent. But to get back to the message. I don't know everything. But I know what I am seeing. I am seeing forced displacement, mass death, and very blatant calls for genocide. I see a population that has been radicalized through bigotry and military service. I see a population who is the equivalent of a spoiled child, who abuses their neighbors and is protected from any repercussions/retaliation because of its daddy. It doesn't take a genius to know what is happening is wrong. I often asked people... what would they do during the Iraq War? What would they do during the Trail of Tears? Yes, Israel has a different history. Yes, the situations are not exactly the same. But like the Iraq War... we have a western nation retaliating against Middle Eastern People... over a terrorist attack. Subsequently, the Western Nation overreacts and commits one of the greatest atrocities in modern times. Killing thousands of innocent people, who had no involvement in the deed/situation. Or the Trail of Tears. We see an indigenous population being abused by colonizers and forcibly removed from their own lands. Why? Did God promise you that land? If Israel still exists in the future. We are going to have Israelis doing land acknowledgements. People wondering why the folks of the past were so cruel. No lessons will be learned. Just a bunch of hyper-nationalists praising the creation and cry-baby liberals lamenting the destruction, yet both still profiting from the massacres all the same. Israel is a reflection of our past and of our future. And that should worrisome to all.

[anatolienne]

"your level of education means nothing if you never learned any compassion"

Terrorists raped a little Israeli girl while mocking her family, who they forced to watch it all.

They walking freely in villages shot and killed any person they saw. They moved house to house and massacred entire families.

In one day they murdered over 350 civilians, raped dozens of women and little girls, tortured people indiscriminately (including an elderly woman). They proudly filmed all their atrocities and posted them online. You can find them on Twitter and Telegram if you care enough. The ones that are less gorey are on the news.

I dont support my government. I support Palestinians. I hate what the IDF is doing, I hate my army and my heart goes out to all the innocent Palestinian civilians in Gaza. I go to protests on Tel Aviv that are against the occupation. You can find some of our (anti zionist Jewish people) voices on "Shovrim Shtika".

Hamas does not fight for Palestine. Hamas just kills and rapes and tortures. They kidnapped over 50 people (the actual numbers are not yet known) including eldery and kids.

You say it's karma until it's you little sister being raped in front of your eyes.

instead of taking the time to make up lies on tumblr you should’ve just booked a ticket and get out of the home you stole hope this helps

[socialistsephardi]

The Political History of Zionism

With everything currently going on, I’ve decided to make this post detailing the different streams of Zionism, in order to deconstruct rhetoric surrounding Zionism. I do this to aid arguments against Hasbara, which often claims that Zionism is unified and simple.

To begin, Political Zionism is generally considered to start with the writings of Theodor Herzl, in the 19th century political climate of Central and Eastern Europe. Prior to this, numerous pre-zionist movements were competing among the Jews of europe following an event called the Haskalah, or “Jewish Enlightment”. The French Revolution caused France to become the first european nation to recognize Jews as citizens with rights, which would be followed by Britain and Germany. This allowed for the formation of a new secular Jewish middle class enthrawled by enlightment principles - mainly, rationalism, romanticism, and nationalism. However, this also generated a shift from religious persecution towards ‘racial’ antisemitism. As the Jews of various countries were subjected to either intense expectations of assimilation, or reoccuring waves of pogroms, it became clear that most of europe regarded these emancipated Jews as foreign nationals of alien religion and culturally compatible. The proto-Zionists begin building a consensus pushing for immigration to Ottoman Palestine, some seeking to provide an alternative to the pogroms, some believing themselves witness to the signs of an imment messiah, etc. Moshe Hess, an associate of Karl Marx, calls for Jews to create a socialist state in Palestine (more on Hess later). Waves of European Jews arrive, and organizations aiming to support Jewish farmers and artisans in Palestine and Syria are founded. The local authorities begin to differentiate between the immigrant Jews and the Jews from the local communities. Herzl enters the Jewish public consciousness with his writings calling specifically for the creation of a Jewish majority state. appealing to the British and French empires to aid them. He rejects Hess’s socialist proposal and instead proposes a reconstruction of Jewry altogether, rejecting the diaspora entirely, arguing that only separation could ensure Jewish survival. Herzl proposes establishing this state in Argentina, but concludes that Palestine would likely have more ideological appeal. I feel it crucial to note here that in his early writings, Herzl is hostile to religious Jews, claims that the Jews of the Ghettos and Shtetls hold back the intellectual, and calls the Sephardi Jews living under France in Algeria mixed blood barbarians. These attitudes would carry over into the political zietgiest of early Zionism.

From here, Zionism begins to grow, the call for simple immigration to the land is supplanted by a demand for a Jewish majority state, and competing schools of thought emerge. The World Zionist Organization is created, and the Zionists pivot attempt including the consent of the Ottomans in the project. Herzl here also begins to explicitly call for the colonization of Palestine, in line with his admiration for the french and british empires. The first major split within the Zionist movement comes with the formation of Labor Zionism based on Hess’s writings. Wheras Herzl’s camp depended on gaining support from the empires and from prominent Jewish figures, Labor Zionism argued that only the Jewish working class could create such a nation, and sought to emphasize a progressive Jewish identity. This is also where a re-alignment for the religious backing begins. Originally, orthodox Jews are in an uneasy alliance with the entirely secular Jews in the movement, mostly because despite his early writings, Herzl emphasized a need to manufacture support from orthodox rabbis and communities. With Herzl eventual death, the orthodox separate from the mainstream movement, citing the believe that only the Messiah can reassert Jewish control over the land. Reform Jews at this time also reject Zionism, as it is perceived as a threat to Jewish citizenship in Europe and America. The Reform rejected the notion that Jews were bound by a shared nationality, a position which held true until the holocaust.

Over the next few decades, various zionist groups in palestine compete for power. Many begin attacking the Muslim and Christian Palestinian communities, often forcibly separating the local Jewry in the process. Jewish terrorist groups launch attacks on British centers following WW1. Labor Zionists rejected traditional Jewish practice, arguing that these represented a diaspora mentality. They also set up the early Kibbitzim. Jabotinsky develops a trend known as Revisionist Zionism, with the aim of territorial maximalism. Revisionist Zionism becomes ingrained as the right wing faction, and eventually becoming the ideological foundation of the current Likud party. Jabotinsky admired and borrowed core concepts from Mussolini and fascism, in particular the centrality of the state, social conservative unity, and racial supremacy. Mussolini knew of this and told the founder of the World Jewish Congress “For Zionism to succeed, you need to have a Jewish State with a Jewish flag, and Jewish language. The person who understands that is your fascist, Jabotinsky". The revisionists during this time approved of the idea of building a Mediterranean alliance and opposing British influence. In 1939, Stern forms Lehi, and they oppose Britain in WW2, instead arguing that Jews must align with the Axis, eventually going so far as to claim that if they were to take control of the mandate, they would negotiate with Hitler to see the Jews in the camps transfered in as new citizens, and in exchange join the German sphere.

Following WW2, the Nakba occurs, and the Haganah (including groups like Lehi) is reorganized into the IDF. The liberal/general Zionists are now faced with oppozing interal forces such as the labor Zionists and the revisionists. They now turn to emphasis liberalism in the new state, mostly the democratic electoral system and the free market, but largely become a backdrop to the rest of the political movements, which turn themselves into party affiliation, since the basic liberal structure had already been established. The labor Zionists become the dominant trend in Israeli politics until the 70′s. Following the Six Day Way in 67, Israel seizes control of the rest of the land from the mandate. This sets off a new movement. Previously, Religious Zionism was a minor stream mostly simply meaning religious Jews who supported Zionism. From here on, however, it becomes dominated by a right wing religious trend and becomes NeoZionism. NeoZionists combined religious and nationalist elements, specifically advocated settlements beyond the green line, and often advocate the removal of Arab people, citing Arab Israelis as a potential 5th column. Neozionists believe that the secularism of other zionist branches is a significant weak point, and usually incorporate far right orthodox talking points. Groups such as the Hebron settlers are highly influenced by Neozionism. Neozionists are also usually behind the call to establish an entirely orthodox state in the west bank if Israel were to pull out. On the opposite end, there are the post-Zionists, who believe Zionism has fulfilled its goal. Post-Zionists are not really coordiated in the same way others on this list are, but generally they are critical of the direction israel has moved, they typically seek to try to make Jews safer in the diaspora, generally support Arab Israelis and some post-zionists believe in transforming the state into an entirely liberal-democratic one. Right wing Israelis also use “post zionist“ to refer to the Israeli left after the Oslo Accords in the mid 90′s.

Finally, I’d like to take note of Kahanism. Kahanism is an extremist ideology based on the work of Rabbi Meir Kahane, and materialized as the Kach party in Israel, a party which was boycotted by every other faction the single time they were elected to the Knesset, and is now banned and labeled a terrorist organization. Kahanists believe that every single Jew should live in Israel, and that only Jews should live in Israel. They advocate for Israel to enforce traditional Jewish law at the national scale, and together with Neozionists have engaged in actions to provoke fear in diaspora communities. Kahanists believe that all Arab people are the mortal enemy of all Jews and that Israel should seize land from Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, and Egypt. Kahane himself proposed laws, including banning intermarriage, banning cultural meetings between Jewish and Muslim students, and re-segregating areas that had already undergone desegregation.

So that is a compressed history of the trends within Zionism. I write this not to garner sympathy for Zionism, but in hopes that this helps pick apart hasbarist simplification. At best, Zionism produced a labor movement with a terribly racist history which stole yemenite Jewish children and encouraged discrimination and segregation against sephardi and mizrachi Jews within Israel from a secular ashkenazi ‘core‘. At worst, fundamentalists and militant zealots who are overwhelmingly hostile to anyone else, groups who align with historic and current fascist and nazi movements, and a massive, overwhelming history of abuse and human rights violations against Palestinians, other Arabs, Jews of color, diaspora movements, etc. If you needed any reason beyond the sheer weight of the Palestinian cause to oppose Zionism, here you go. I hope this sways the mind of any lingering ZIonists reading this, and I hope this is used to more effectively call out Zionism for what it is - a racist, imperialist, and fascist ideology hellbent on redefining Judaism for its aims against any act of solidarity between groups, completely fueled by western interests in carving up and controlling West Asia / the middle east/ Al-Mashriq.

[yellowjets]

Response to Ilhan Omar 2.0

Two undeniable truths about Ilhan Omar: she hates Trump and she hates Israel. You cannot argue this. Omar has made it her mission to cause fear of Israel in the Democratic party, misrepresent them, use that fear to incite more hatred against Trump, rally against him, and further her own political agenda.

1. "Under pressure from Donald Trump"

What the average American may not understand, is that Bibi doesn't do anything he doesn't want to do. Trump's comments may have been the green light to go ahead with this decision, but it is highly likely it would have happened anyway. Israel gets pressure from many world leaders about other issues and Bibi chooses not to listen. Trump does not hold some sort of power over him, and Omar suggesting otherwise is really just an attempt at causing more fear of Trump on the left.

2. "Trump's Muslim ban"

Ahh yes, the old Muslim ban, something that never actually happened. Again Omar uses a false American concept to sweep the real reasons she's been banned under the rug. Both Omar and Tlaib are supporters and advocates of BDS, a movement that is widely accepted as not only anti-jewish, but also has been proven to heavily effect Arabs living in the West bank in a negative way. All it does is breed hatred towards the Jewish state and leads to boycotts of Jewish businesses outside of Israel. (Remember the last guy who did that?) This is the reason they are refused entry, not because of faith. You really think the leader of any other country would allow people in who directly call for the boycott of said country and its people? Absolutely not. But of course, Omar knows she can lie about this because people are ignorant and will not bother looking for correct information.

3. "Limits our abilities to learn from Israelis"

Yay! The first true statement. Unfortunately it's irrelevant considering its pretty difficult to learn from people you're busy boycotting. Literally no one, not a single person on this planet actually believes you want to "learn from Israelis". This was an expose Israel mission from the get go. One that has been conducted many times before, and usually ends up with not much to expose, and turns into some libellous exercise instead. Recently there was an assertion in a final year test in Australia that the IDF destroys homes in the West bank because the Muslim population refuses to accept Judaism. This is unbelievably untrue, and extremely damaging to Jews everywhere. This is the sort of mess Omar and Tlaib would have come back spouting. If you don't believe me, two seconds ago Omar was talking about a non existent Muslim ban in Israel.

4. "Resisted peace efforts"

Now I'm not exactly sure which peace efforts Bibi has participated in, but when the most recent peace deal has been rejected by the Palestinian government, Hamas is still firing rockets from Gaza and organising protests that involve incendiary kites and balloons, as well as Molotov cocktails and burning tires, the Palestinian government is still encouraging terrorism from the West bank by paying out families of terrorists, and changing the schoolbooks in Palestinian classes to be even more anti-jewish, when all of this is realised, it really fair to say that Israel has resisted peace?

5. "Restricted movement of Palestinians"

I think you spelt "Israelis" wrong. Palestians, while yes they do have to go through rigorous security and checkpoints between borders, are able to move freely between all areas of the West bank and Israel. Israelis, however, are unable to go to many parts of Palestinian run areas in the West bank, many of which include holy sites for the Jewish people. A Palestinian, may take any bus in Israel or the West bank, an Israeli may not. Unless of course Omar means Israel blowing up terror tunnels... That would tend to restrict Palestinian movement, but I'm sure any normal person would agree to that one.

6. "Limited public knowledge of the brutal realities of the occupation"

My FAVOURITE! Just because you, Omar, seem to have very limited knowledge of pretty much anything Israel/Palestine related, it doesn't make that Bibi's fault. The truth is out there, maybe like, go on Wikipedia as a starting point. The reality of the "occupation" is that Gaza is uninhabited by Jews, and has had no IDF presence for the last 5 years. The West bank has areas totally run by the PA where Jews cannot enter, and an IDF presence to limit terrorist attacks on Jewish civilians. That is the reality.

7. "Aligned himself with islamaphobes like Donald Trump"

Fair point, also irrelevant when you yourself align with and support terrorists who openly call for the destruction of the Jewish state, and the wiping out of the Jewish people.

8. "It is my job..."

It is not your job to lie about the realities of the conflict, to express biased support for one side, attempt to go to a country with the intent to "expose" (read: lie about) it, and then whinge about how you weren't allowed the opportunity to learn from them when you have already expressed intent to boycott those who could teach you.

9. "Insult to democratic values"

My right to kill someone is outweighed by their right to live. Your right to go to a country with the intent of supporting it's enemies, who have called for its destruction and the murder of its people is similarly, outweighed by their right to live.

Final thoughts:

Israel made the right decision. These women would have come in with the intent to slander Israel when they got out. That would inflame the already existing conflict even more and potentially cost lives of both Jewish and Palestinian civilians. For Omar and Tlaib to sit there and whine about it is pathetic. They know why they can't go, they know by making a fuss they will gain support, but Israel knows the cost of letting them in will be greater.

[priceforrottenjudgement]

(1/3)hi! i just stumbled upon your posts about gal gadot (i know, its so late). i'm glad to find someone who loves wonder woman but acknowledge gal gadot's flaws. i used to like gal,i'm a muslim,i knew she served in the IDF but i understand it was mandatory and i wouldnt generalize her (trust me,we know what its like to be generalized as terrorist)

(2/3)I only recently found out about what she said regarding the Israel-palestine conflict (being enlisted involuntarily and being actively supporting their actions are two different things), and I’m really hurt and disappointed. I really love the movie. i love patty jenkins and chris pine. I’m already so invested in the wonder woman fandom,but some people here seems to think that to support WW, you must support gal.

(3/3)I saw people being called ‘mysoginist’ and ‘anti-semistic’ for expressing their dislike toward gal. I saw people being treated as if they have no right to be hurt by what gal has said. No, you don’t get to decide whether or not something can hurt other people. i love DCEU diana prince but gal is NOT her, neither is she the angelic feminist icon people makes her out to be. I guess I’m just happy to see you as one of the few people who’s able to differentiate between diana and gal.

thank you! the thing is: she could have just not said anything? i get that not everyone can be openly critical of their own government or military bc they fear for their life or career, especially when said government conscripts you into serving, but you don’t have to openly praise them when you KNOW they are being criticised for human rights violations. you don’t have to make posts claiming “weareright” you dont have to go on about how serving taught you ‘humility’ and ‘to give back to your country’. or how your time in the military had an impact on your training for wonder woman. great.

also so many people think that criticising the idf’s actions means excusing actions by hamas or palestinian terrorist groups? like? no? you can think both are wrong, you can condemn both and you can also acknowledge that one is regarded a terrorist organisation by almost all countries of the world and the other is the government of a state, and that when a government decides to bomb civilians its weirdly ok with a lot of people.

also so many people (including the state of israel itself) do this weird thing where they conflate justified criticism of their military actions with antisemitism. there have been jewish people before the state of israel existed, there are jewish people living outside of israel and there are non-jewish people inside of israel. there are israeli people criticising israel’s actions towards palestine. people criticising israel CAN be antisemites (a lot of people use the idf’s actions to justify their hatred of jewish people), but they aren’t inherently antisemitic just bc they say “maybe building shit on disputed land is a bad move?” or “maybe if amnesty international says what you’re doing is wrong and bordering on an apartheid state you should.... not do it?”

you would call out any american celebrity who sucks up to trump or who defends sending unmanned drones to kill people. why not give gal the same treatment?

yes, she was good as wonder woman, yes she is nice and wonderful with fans, yes she seems like a good person. but you cant just ignore shit like this. and i see so many people derail criticism of her by saying “this is just an excuse to be antisemitic” NO. this has nothing to do with her being jewish jfc. this isn’t even about her having been a part of the idf (again, all physically able israeli people of age HAVE to serve). this is the same argument white feminists use when they try to defend their problematic white female faves. a person’s gender, race, sexuality, religion, etc doesn’t excuse their shitty behaviour and people need to get this into their heads.

i loved the movie and gal gadot isn’t an entirely shitty person, but as long as so many on here ignore this side of her and refuse to look at her in a critical way i refuse to post anything in support of her.

(sorry for adding all that to your ask, but her snl appearance is coming up, so i gotta get this out again)

(also, so nobody can come after my ass: these posts include sources. you can also check out the anti gal gadot tag or just google this shit.)

[okpeoplelistenup]

In the light of recent events I’d like to point out that Palestinian genocide isn’t a real thing! News flash! And before y'all start reporting my ass I’d also like to point out that:

1) the IDF has never and will never commit to those kinds of atrocities. Mean while in America and Russia and many other countries still consider concentration camps as a useful solution to handling immigrants and outcasts. Death sentences are illegal and people are not publicly executed. Do you really think that a country with that kind of history would want to do the same thing to others? Would want to go out and make bets on how many people they can take down at once? Do school shootings? Go into public places and see how many people they can run over before they get arrested? I’m not saying all of them are saints but they do haves laws, policies, punishments and most of them follow them. They don’t jail innocent people, and suicide terrorists that are caught before the act are sent to rehabilitation, because the state of Israel recognises depression and suicide as actual mental health issues and not an act of righteousness or devotion. Though, when they are released, most go out and try it again. Seriously, how could you defend the Hamas that managed to brainwash a 23 y/o scholar into committing mas murder by suicide bombing?! Children are given knives and told to go kill as many people as they can before they’re killed/arrested!

2) I’m not saying that Jews aren’t committing crimes against Palestinians too but both sides are punished accordingly and a crime, doesn’t matter from which side have the same weight! And on the subject of the IDF I’d like to point out that not everyone goes to combat they have doctors, they have engineers, but they also have people who sit next to the phone all day, and people who are designated drivers. People who don’t want to fight don’t have too, people who are not fit for combat are not sent to combat. Citizens can also refuse to go to the army and instead get a religious, ethnic or refusal pardon (Muslim, orthodox Jews, Christians, Arab, Bedouin, ect.) and instead do community service for a couple of years. They are not mass murderers built on hatred and their only thoughts are about killing Palestinians. And 80% of the country don’t even go to the army! You do have to serve the country but there is more than one way than just going to the army. It’s not easy on them too you know, they’re kids that are putting their lives on the line everyday and they have families at home and people that they love.

3) I could really go on for days about the two state/one united state solution but i think these videos​ do more justice than me: https://youtu.be/76NytvQAIs0 https://youtu.be/8EDW88CBo-8

4) although hating people for no apparent reason besides the fact that hating gives you a sense of purpose and you feed of rumours and hate speech articles, in Israel,​ people are not brainwashed into hating the Palestinians! In fact, they have many programs and activities including Israeli children and Palestinian children together to try and create peace between the two cultures. But I’ll tell you who really likes brainwashing people: the Hamas. They are a terrorist group that focuses more on hurting and brainwashing they’re own civilians into blind hatred that maybe finding a solution to bring the two countries to a peaceful solution.

5) I can tell you from personal experience the Palestinians do not want to talk about peace and they have no plans on building their own country without kicking every single Jew AND Christian AND athiest out of the land (no, I’m not exadurating). My cousin studied Arabic for eight years so that he could learn to speak with people from Palestine and maybe underand things from their view, but they refused to speak to him and his group. All they did the entire time was talk about how all Jews are pigs and have to be killed.

6) on the subject of BDS I’d like to just say that soda stream provided hundreds of palestinians a well paid, respectful, secure job that helped​ improve their community and by protesting and convincing them to move you just made hundred of people unemployed and probably homeless.

Both sides have people; children, teenagers, elders, families, loved ones, humans! And each side has its own problems on the way and each and everyone of us is human. But don’t think that everything is black and white that we’re all like this or they’re all like that and because some people say this about one side that means everyone from that side is exactly that same. I’ve also met many Palestinians who do want peace, who want to end this hatred/fear, on both sides! They’re all very good friends of mine and I respect and love them all. But unfortunately they are either women (therefore have no voice in they’re community) or not in a position of power or recognition enough to make a difference…

So you can go see Wonder Woman, you can go buy Israeli products and support Israel because it’s not funding any evil Corporation or giving recognition to hate crimes or encouraging genocide!

P.s. Jews and Palestinians and all people that are bad are bad people who do bad things and you have every right to hate them but let’s not include them all…

[ruminativerabbi]

Lawfare is Warfare

When I first heard that the International Criminal Court based in The Hague had determined that war crimes have been committed on the West Bank, in Gaza, and in East Jerusalem and was going to embark on the process of deciding whether or not to prosecute those alleged crimes, my first tendency—like most normal people, I imagine—was to wave it away as yet another example of an organization founded to prosecute wrongdoing being hijacked by Israel’s enemies as part of a long-term effort to delegitimize the Jewish state. In a nutshell, that actually is what this is all about. But the potential consequences for Israel are serious. And the situation, as it turns out, is far more complicated than I had first understood.

The court was founded in 2002 by the signatories to the so-called Rome Statute that now serves as the court’s foundational document. Neither the United States nor Israel is a signatory to the Rome Statute, however, because at the time both nations feared—apparently entirely reasonably—that the court would end up delivering highly politicized judgments unrelated to the pursuit of justice that was supposed to be the court’s raison d’être in the first place. And although the ICC is in theory independent of the United Nations, the on-the-ground reality is that the Court is so intricately related to the U.N. so as to make of its latest machinations just another part of the U.N.’s mission to ignore—and, indeed, to whitewash—the crimes of all members states except Israel so as to have the time solely to devote itself to the demonization of the Jewish state. (More on this below.) But just to wave this latest development as just another example of the moral bankruptcy of a United Nations-related agency like UNESCO or (even more egregiously) UNRWA would be a mistake. This is an important development that needs to be taken seriously.

The ICC can only try individuals, not entire countries. And so, if the pre-trial hearing that will now ensue endorses the opinion the President of the Court, Fatou Bensouda of Guinea, that the ICC does indeed have the right to pursue the matter, what will almost inevitably follow will be the issuance of subpoenas to major Israeli political and military figures ordering them to appear before the court. If they declined to appear, warrants could then be issued for their arrest. And although it is so that the Bensouda’s original decision speaks in passing about crimes committed by Hamas and the Palestinian Authority, no one appears to be taking any of that too seriously—including not Hamas or the Palestinian Authority, both of which organizations openly and effusively praised Bensouda’s decision to proceed and neither of which entities seemed to harbor even the slightest worry that it might end up having to answer for any of its own actions.

There are strong arguments against the ICC decision to move forward against Israel, some procedural and some moral.  Of them, though, surely not the least compelling is the relationship—ignored by the court but fully relevant—between the fact that Israel is not a signatory of the Rome Accord and the fact that the ICC only has the right to bring the citizens of member states to trial. But there are other strong arguments in Israel’s favor as well.

The ICC’s decision to treat the Palestinians as though Palestine were an independent country is rooted in the kind of wishful thinking that has characterized the fantasyland approach to reality of the United Nations for decades. Palestine, of course, could easily become an independent country: having already been recognized as a state—or at least a state in potentia—by well over one hundred countries, all the Palestinians have to do is to declare their independence and then get down to the task of negotiating a workable modus vivendi with the neighbors. It’s that last part, of course, that has gummed up the works for decades now: the obvious necessity of recognizing the reality of Israel’s existence and learning to live in harmony with the Jewish state has been the sticking point that has held back the Palestinians from doing what they endlessly insist is all they really want to do: to live in peace as an independent state among the nations of the world.  But that inability to accept reality and create a nation is hardly Israel’s fault: the door to Palestinian independence has been open for decades even despite the Palestinians’ unwillingness to step through it. The ICC’s solution—simply to ignore reality—is simultaneously childish and malign, and does not do the court any credit. But there is far more to say as well.

Key too is that the court exists to prosecute individuals for war crimes in places where there is no independent judiciary that can investigate and try its own citizens. But Israel is hardly that place: the independence of the Israeli judiciary and its ability to act freely has just been demonstrated in the various indictments handed down against Benyamin Netanyahu. Even more relevant, though, is that there actually have been individuals tried over the years in Israel for having behaved with excessive force or violence against Palestinians. So the notion that the ICC would need to step in even if it did have some sort of jurisdiction in the matter is not particularly convincing. And when paired with the fact that neither the Palestinian Authority nor Hamas has ever tried anyone for war crimes committed against Israeli citizens and actually foster terror crimes against civilians by lionizing terrorists who die on the job and providing endless financial support for their families—taken together, those two facts make the whole notion of trying Israel at the ICC even more Kafkaesque.

But when all of the above is considered in light of the ICC’s own history, the situation moves past Kafka.

The ICC has, to date, undertaken investigations into twelve different countries, mostly in Africa. (The countries involved are Burundi, the Central African Republic, Côte d’Ivoire, Sudan, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Georgia, Kenya, Mali, Libya, Uganda, Myanmar, and Bangladesh.) But it has adopted a totally hands-off policy with respect to the Arab world: the government of Syria has killed hundreds of thousands of its own civilians over the last few years, destroyed countless towns and villages, and turned fully half of its own population into refugees. But the ICC has shown no interest of any sort in that behavior. Indeed, among the nations of the Middle East, only Israel arouses its ire…and merely for defending itself against entities that openly espouse terror as their weapon of choice in a war they could end tomorrow but prefer to pursue perennially as though violence directed at civilians could somehow result in the achievement of their avowed goals.

Finally, the argument—which I’ve noted in a dozen different on-line settings—that the ICC is independent of the United Nations is simply not true. For one thing, the ICC depends fully on the United Nations for all of its funding. For another, the ICC regularly bases itself on the kind of one-sided, wholly biased reporting of U.N. agencies that no reasonable person would consider even remotely accurate.

The world has mostly nodded. Yes, the P.M. of Australia, who has more on his plate this week to worry about than the ICC, took the time to opine in public that the ICC has no jurisdiction in the matter of Israel’s behavior. The German government said much the same thing, as did our own Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo.  So there’s that to be grateful for. But the larger issue—the public demonization of Israel in the larger forum of nations and the general willingness of the nations of the world not to care or even particularly to notice—is beyond distressing.

Finally, and perhaps most important of all, the issue itself of war crimes committed during the Gaza Uprising of 2014 is itself a bogus charge invented by Israel’s enemies without any serious evidence to muster on its own behalf.  A year later, in 2015, the independent High-Level Military Group—a group led by General Klaus Naumann, the former chief of staff of the German Army and the Chairman of the NATO military committee and staffed by generals, high-level military experts, senior officers, and chiefs of staff from seven NATO nations—came to the following conclusion regarding Israel’s actions in Gaza: “Each of our own armies is of course committed to protecting civilian life during combat. But none of us is aware of any army that takes such extensive measures as did the IDF last summer to protect the lives of the civilian population in such circumstances…During Operation Protective Edge, in the air, on the ground and at sea, Israel not only met a reasonable international standard of observance of the laws of armed conflict, but in many cases significantly exceeded that standard.”

As the specter of anti-Semitism rises at home and abroad, we tend to focus on the thugs and brutes that attack Jews at worship in synagogue or at home. That rising tide has to be addressed, obviously, and somehow confronted. But to allow our distress over that kind of activity at home to divert our gaze from institutions like the ICC merely because they present themselves not as ruffians or hoodlums but as jurists concerned solely with the pursuit of justice—that would be a disastrous error of judgment. In the end, I still hope that reasonableness will prevail, but I feel less sanguine with each successive article I read, both in print and online, about the inner workings of the International Criminal Court. Our government has already spoken out forcefully on the side of decency and rationality. I mentioned above the responses of Germany and Australia. Which of our other so-called friends and allies will join us in calling out the ICC, on the other hand, remains to be seen.

[good-old-gossip]

IDF is a terrorist organisation.

Mad the pope condemned your murder of two christian women sheltering in as church aren’t you