#what does the bible say about palestinians

[latestnews69]

Last bone surgeon in northern Gaza killed, Palestinians say

A doctor believed to be the last remaining orthopaedic surgeon in northern Gaza has been killed by Israeli tankfire, according to Palestinian officials.

Dr Sayeed Joudeh died on Thursday while he was on his way to work.

He was a surgeon at Kamal Adwan and al-Awda hospitals in northern Gaza.

The Israeli military said it was unaware of the incident, but it was investigating.Read more

[etz-ashashiyot]

Generally radicalized people are radicalized for a reason: their radicalization does something for them and/or they believe that their desire to reshape society in a way that they believe will fix things does something for them. The key to deradicalizing them, then, is to figure out what that need is and fill it with something else.

Most of the time, people don't actually want rivers of blood, they want justice for wrongs that they feel aren't being heard.

Most of the time, they don't actually hate [X] minority - they don't even know anyone of that minority! They hate the false strawman version of that minority that is completely detached from reality, but that's been sold to them as the source of their problems.

And most people are honestly kinda lazy, lol. They are not going to physically fight for their fucked up ideas unless either (1) they are backed into a corner and literally must, or (2) they get swept up as part of a larger mob where the bully mentality takes over and the few people leading it decide to turn it into a violent mob.

So you gotta suck the wind out of their sails.

This works best if they are in or adjacent to your own communit(ies), because you will have more insight into what this is doing for them.

For the goyische leftists that have been radicalized into Jew hate lately, it's a combination of things. It's a feeling of powerlessness as the world slides rapidly towards fascism and climate crisis. It's the ghosts of unaddressed colonialism that they are choosing to impose their emotional catharsis on this unrelated and falsely analogous situation to enact what they feel would be just in their own society on people safely half the world away. Why there? Well, it's because it's a very small area with all of the culturally significant places that they grew up hearing about from the Bible in church, so it carries emotional weight. Most importantly, both parties are small and neither party has much international power to stop them, so they are able to impose their own narrative on the situation and speak over everyone actually there. Anyone who tries to correct them is drowned out. And, it's the history of Soviet antisemitism that is baked into the DNA of most western leftist movements and which Jews have never had the numbers or power to force them to actually confront.

Jew hatred is extremely convenient and Jews have been murdered in large enough numbers that we are easy to talk over.

Now usually, when you start pointing these things out, and especially when you start pointing out how ineffective and self-serving their "activism" on behalf of Palestinians is, they are too radicalized to do anything but react emotionally. They will spit out talking points, but none of these things actually address any of the above. They usually just devolve into "but but, Israeli war crimes!!" like it's a talisman against accurate allegations of antisemitism.

Why won't they listen to reason? When you show them how what they're saying is literal Nazi propaganda with the swastikas filed off and "Zionists" being used as a stand-in for Jews while they simultaneously vociferously deny any connection between Jews and Zionism? Why won't they take any accountability for their bigotry? Why won't they, at a minimum, listen to the Palestinians who want peace even if they won't listen to Jews advocating for the same thing?

It's because then they would have to give up the major benefits that they've been reaping from this situation: the social capital, the excuses to act out, the glow of feeling totally righteous in their fury, the catharsis - and trade it for the extremely unappealing process of actually becoming a decent person and a better advocate for their cause. It's hurting people they don't care about and they have a whole lot of organizations and institutions and people with actual power who materially benefit from their misdirected anger stoking the flames, and helping them lie to themselves that they are actually helping someone besides themselves and the handful of true beneficiaries behind the conflict.

They are being used.

And in twenty years they'll wake up and realize that they spent their youth shouting Nazi and Stalinist slogans of hatred that only benefitted right-wing hawks on both sides who make actual money and power off this conflict at the expense of two persecuted minorities. But they will be ashamed and will bury that behavior underneath silence and excuses.

This happens in every generation, by the way. Every 70 - 100 years, people find a socially plausible reason to hate and kill Jews because it is easier than standing up to the people with actual power. We are people they know they can hurt, and so long as they lie to themselves about who they're hurting and why, it feels really good.

Overcoming that directly has never worked.

It doesn't work because catharsis and punching down or laterally feels productive and owning their biases and bigotry and developing practical long-term strategies is tedious and often feels like shit.

What I've seen real activists do is to address the need for catharsis, praise, and to feel useful in other ways, because they are often less attached to the specific lowest hanging bigoted fruit and more in the rewards it gives them.

If we want to see this change, yelling at leftists that they're being bigoted morons feels good (productivity! feeling a sense of reclaiming control and power from helplessness! catharsis! We are not immune to these human needs either) but it's counterproductive. You don't convince a toddler to give up the shiny dangerous toy by trying to just snatch it away - if anything, you've now cemented this as an epic struggle for all time against the cold, cruel, injustices of the parental controls. No, you have to give them a new, safer toy.

My position is that if we want to see movement on this, we need to suck it up, stop yelling at the radicalized, and start finding ways to help Palestine that both feel gratifying and are actually pro-peace.

And, for the true sick fucks who really do want rivers of Jewish blood (and if a bunch of Gazans are martyred in the process, oh well)? That's where we need our true allies to help us fight back the most. This type of person will never respond to anything but power, so they will back down if they feel that they are truly threatened. To get the rest of the fair weather friends on board, we need to show how these violent tantrums are actually threatening their new catharsis, gratification, and progress so that they aren't swayed by the bullies and instead want to guard their new emotional investment and moral high ground.

Ultimately, we all want to feel like we're the good guys. We want catharsis. We want instant gratification. We want to see movement. We want justice for the wrongs committed against us and those we choose to see ourselves in community with. Many of us have real-world serious grievances that are intractable and that we don't have the individual power to fix, but are intolerable as things currently stand. These people aren't special; they aren't different from us and we aren't different from them in those ways. The problem is that activism - real activism that actually moves the needle - will typically not give you that satisfaction or meet those needs, and most people don't have the mental space to meet those needs in a better way, so punching laterally becomes the quick fix solution. Meanwhile, the people in actual positions of power benefit from this gladiator fight.

And until actual activists reckon with that reality, we are going to see more and more of the same.

[fdelopera]

Exposing an Antisemitic Conspiracy Theory from TikTok

If I see one more Jew-hating idiot with TikTok brainrot saying shit like, "the Palestinians are descended from the ancient Philistines from the Bible lolol"...

You Jew-haters are exhaustingly stupid. And in this post, I'm going to show you why.

As I said in my post yesterday, there are some really bad actors (both in the conspiracy sense, and in the literal "drama" sense) on TikTok who are trying to erase Jewish history by spreading conspiracy theories that somehow Philistines and Palestinians are "the same".

These idiots are doing this so they can claim that "Jesus was a Palestinian/Philistine."

It gives me a headache even to write something as stupid as that.

No, ya dumb-dumbs. Jesus was not a Philistine. Jesus was a Judaean Jew. He was from Bethlehem. In Judaea.

You know, Judaea. The place where the Jews are from.

It is actually really offensive to a lot of Christians to claim that "Jesus was a Philistine" like this. If you've never read the Bible (and I'm guessing none of these TikTokers have), calling someone a "Philistine" is an insult. In common use, it means an uncultured or crass person.

In Hebrew, the word for Philistine is "Peleshet (Plishtim, plural)". It is related to the Hebrew word, "Polesh". Polesh in Hebrew means "invader".

So by calling Jesus a Philistine, you're calling him an uncultured invader.

And I am here, as a Jew, telling you to stop insulting Jesus like this!

.

Now, saying "Jesus was the same as modern day Palestinians" is also unhistorical.

The region was called Judaea when Jesus was alive. So he was a Judaean Jew.

It would be just as unhistorical to say, "Jesus was a modern-day Israeli".

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So, why are antisemites spouting this bullshit?

Unfortunately, these Jew-haters think they're "protecting" the Arab Palestinians by spreading conspiracy theories and lies about Jewish history.

They think they're making a "case" for Arab Palestinian indigeneity in Judea by telling these lies.

Because Arabs aren't indigenous to Judea.

And let me tell you, Tumblrinies who went to the Tumblr school of world history are even trying to rewrite Arab history! Some of them have even tried to tell me, "but Canaanites were Arabs lolol!"

Do you want me to show you a map?? No, dumb-dumbs. Canaanites were NOT Arabs. Canaanites are the ancestors of the Jewish People. Not the ancestors of Arabs.

Arabs come from the Arabian Peninsula.

OMG do you guys not even study geography anymore??

These Jew-hating idiots are literally willing to try to rewrite the history of the Arabian Peninsula just so they can fuck with Jewish people. You antisemites are absolutely unhinged!!

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Okay, deep breath.

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Here's the other thing. Our educational system is broken. And people don't study history (clearly).

Because if they did study history, they would realize that attaching Jesus to the Philistines doesn't confer ANY indigeneity to the Palestinian people.

(G-d, you conspiracy theory idiots are so dumb!!)

Because, you see, the Philistines were GREEK!!

They weren't indigenous to the Levant AT ALL!!

So in claiming that the Palestinians are the "same as" the Philistines, you have actually WEAKENED the case for Palestinian indigeneity!

And none of this matters!

YES, the Jewish people ARE indigenous to Judea.

And NO the Palestinian Arabs are NOT.

BUT IT DOESN'T MATTER.

IT DOESN'T MATTER THAT ARABS ARE NOT INDIGENOUS TO JUDEA.

BECAUSE THE PALESTINIAN PEOPLE DESERVE HUMAN RIGHTS AND SELF-DETERMINATION NO MATTER WHAT!!!

Do you see what spreading conspiracy theories and lies about Jewish history does? All it does is make you look like FOOLS, and it HURTS the Palestinian people!!!

And YES, these conspiracy theories mainly hurt Jews. But I know y'all don't give a single SHIT about Jews. You've proven to us just how antisemitic you are.

So PLEASE for the LOVE OF G-D, STOP spreading these fucking LIES, BECAUSE THEY HURT PALESTINIANS TOO!!

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Okay. Deep breath. Some history.

The Philistines were ancient Bronze Age Mycenaeans, aka they were Greeks. The Torah is consistent with this. It records them as being from Crete, which during the Late Bronze Age was under Mycenaean control. They also had some genetic admixture from Southern Italy. We know this both from DNA evidence from their skeletons, and also from their pottery, which looks similar to Mycenaean Bronze Age pottery.

And regardless, Israel and Jerusalem are both in the archeological record, and in Egyptian records, LONG BEFORE the Greek Philistine people appeared in Egyptian records. The ancestors of the Jewish people were there long before the Philistines arrived.

And you would know all this if you STUDY JEWISH HISTORY! Here's my Jewish history masterpost. I recommend that everyone read it.

The Philistines were invaders in Canaan, and they clashed often with the native Canaanites, which are the people that Jewish people are descended from. Jews ARE Canaanites. Read my post here on Jewish origins.

The cultural memory of these clashes is recorded in the story of David and Goliath in the Bible. The Israelite David felled the much larger Philistine Goliath with a slingshot, and then chopped off Goliath's head with his own iron sword.

The Greek Philistines were a small people group living in Judea. The last of the Philistines in Judea were slaughtered in 604 BCE by the army of Babylonian King Nebuchadnezzar II when he besieged Jerusalem. This is the same siege that resulted in the Babylonian Exile of the Jewish people. Nebuchadnezzar dragged many of the Judeans (the Jewish population) as captives to Babylon (modern day Iraq). Then in 586 BCE, Nebuchadnezzar destroyed the First Jewish Temple and dragged many more of the Jews into captivity in Babylon.

In 539 BCE, the Persian King Cyrus the Great defeated the Babylonians in battle, and in 538 BCE, the Persians allowed the Jews to return to Judea. The Jews came back to Jerusalem to build the Second Temple on the site where the First Temple had stood, which they completed in 515 BCE. But when the Jews returned, they found that the Greek Philistine community had been decimated by the Babylonians.

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So, where did the Philistines come from?

As I stated above, the name "Philistine" is a Greek version of the Hebrew word Peleshet, and the Peleshet were likely the same as the Mycenaean Greek Peleset tribe known to Egypt. The Greek Peleset tribe were part of a people group that are today called the "Sea Peoples."

At the end of the Bronze Age (aka the Late Bronze Age Collapse), the known world was going through a period of terrible drought, famine, and earthquakes. Various people groups from areas that are now part of Italy and Greece, including the Greek Peleset tribe, formed a rough confederation and went around to various cities, sacking and plundering the cities for resources. In 1175 BCE, the Sea Peoples invaded Egypt, and King Ramesses III defeated them in battle. He commemorated their defeat on a wall of his mortuary temple at Medinet Habu.

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So why is Palestine called Palestine, a name that does derive from the name Philistine?

To find out, you have to fast forward from around 604 BCE (when the Babylonians wiped out the last of the Greek Philistine people) to around 135 CE to get to the next time that the name of the "Philistines" becomes important.

That's a span of around 740 YEARS!

At that point, the Second Temple in Jerusalem had already been destroyed by the Romans in 70 CE. The Romans were doing ethnic cleansing on the Jews in Judaea, after the Jews tried to get Jerusalem back from Roman control in the Bar Kochba revolt (132 - 135 CE).

After the Roman Empire defeated the Jews in Judaea and squashed the Bar Kochba Revolt in 135 CE, the Romans RENAMED the region Syria-Palaestina. It was a vain attempt to remove the Jewish presence in the region. The Romans literally tried to wipe the Jews "off the map."

Guess what, motherfuckers! It didn't work. Jews came back to the region not long after.

The Romans named the region after the GREEK Peleshet/Philistines (who, again, by then were LONG GONE).

So the name "Syria-Palaestina" is basically the Romans trying to erase Jewish identity. Which again, DIDN'T WORK.

WE JEWS ARE STILL HERE.

So tl;dr "Palestine" is NOT the same as the Greek Philistines/Peleshet.

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The Romans just went through the Hebrew Bible and looked for a name they could call the region that would be painful to the Jewish people. So they named the region after one of the Jewish people's Biblical rivals.

Philistia was also a name that was in use in the Greek world because, again, the Philistines were ancient Greeks.

But there's no actual connection between the region called "Syria-Palaestina" and the Greek people group called the Philistines.

This is why (let's say it all together kids) you need to LEARN JEWISH HISTORY!

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And here's the worst part of this conspiracy theory.

Again, I know why Jew-haters tell this lie. And by now, so do you.

Jew-haters say this shit in a completely misguided attempt to "protect" the Palestinian people.

But, let's say it all together, the Palestinian people don't need to be backed by LIES in order to defend their human rights and their right to self-determination!

The Palestinian people DESERVE PROTECTION. THEY DESERVE TO HAVE FULL HUMAN RIGHTS.

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THIS IS NOT A ZERO-SUM GAME, with one "winner" and one "loser."

YOU DON'T NEED TO TELL LIES ABOUT JEWISH HISTORY TO DEFEND THE PALESTINIAN PEOPLE.

Jews and Palestinians are not "pawns" for you Jew-haters to use in your pretend game of war. You're acting like you're in some sort of video game fantasy.

JEWS AND PALESTINIANS ARE NOT YOUR PLAYTHINGS!

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If you tell lies about Jewish history in a stupid attempt to "defend" the Palestinian people, you're not helping them at all. You're just being an antisemitic bigot steeped in Jew-hatred.

And taken to its extreme, the real conclusion of your antisemitic LIE is actually a really weird, unhinged blasphemy against the Prophet Muhammad!!

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So if you ACTUALLY want to HELP the Palestinian people, and not just be a Jew-hating bigot, I would recommend that you put your money where your mouth is.

Stop telling easily disprovable LIES about Jewish history, and start donating to organizations and charities that are helping Palestinians. The organizations that I recommend are:

ANERA

Palestine Children's Relief Fund

Doctors Without Borders

Standing Together

[eretzyisrael]

by Ted Goldstein

As I thought about this more, I realized how profoundly true it was: This was Israel’s second War of Independence, not from the British, but from all the world’s other nations. Israel is its own country, but it is by no means independent to act how it chooses. The reality is that Israel has always made strategic and political concessions to the major powers of the world — most recently, the United States.

Israel, however, is not just the name of the state that was formed in 1948; it is also the name of the Jewish People as a whole. And is the Jewish nation, as a whole, independent?

Certainly not; just look at what happened in Amsterdam on the anniversary of Kristallnacht a couple of weeks ago. Many Jews (globally speaking, most Jews) always knew that the world saw them now as, at best, second-class citizens, and at worst, subhuman. However, those of us privileged enough to grow up in the West, grew up in an ahistorical time where antisemitism was not prevalent enough to affect our day-to-day lives.

After October 7th, we woke up and understood that the world had not changed. Neither the International Red Cross nor the United Nations Human Rights Council has done anything to free or even check on the hostages kidnapped by Palestinian terrorists. There could be no clearer signal that the world does not care for its Jews.

We are not like them — no matter how hard we try to assimilate and fit in, we will always be Jews in their eyes. And we should be damn proud of that.

Recently, the United Nations Special Rapporteur said that Israel should leave the UN, and it was the first reasonable thing she has ever said. I have said it once, I will say it again: We never should have trusted an organization called “Goyim4 United” — it was always in the name. (Although honestly, the “League of Goyim” may have been worse.)

It might sound scary to consider the idea of Israel leaving the United Nations, but we should seriously consider, what has the United Nations done for Israel? What does participating in it provide for the Israeli people?

In many ways, the failures of the UN reflect the failures of the nations who it represents. For two and a half millennia, the nations of the world have led global affairs while the Jewish People were exiled from their homeland. In those two and a half millennia, what has been the state of the world?

Perpetual war.

Now, for the first time in 2,500 years, the Jewish People once again have an opportunity to be sovereign in our homeland, but the nations of the world try to stymy us at every turn.

The Nation of Israel is a strong nation, a beautiful nation, a transcendent nation. In truth, it does not operate by any of the same functions as the rest of the world; it is the only nation who has retained its national character without living in its ancestral land for 2,500 years. It produces geniuses at a preposterous rate, and it has gifted the world everything from the Bible to “Seinfeld.”

The Nation of Israel is a nation like no other. We have passed our glorious tradition down, from generation to generation, never wavering from our conviction that one day we would return to the land and re-establish our sovereignty there. Hence why it is time for a new generation of Israelites to pick up the flag and carry it forward.

[useless-englandfacts]

I do recommend watching the whole thing but here is a clip from Rev. Munther Isaac's Christmas sermon entitled 'Jesus under the rubble', delivered in Bethlehem in the occupied West Bank on Saturday.

Transcript under the cut:

This war has confirmed to us that the world does not see us as equal. Maybe it's the colour of our skins. Maybe it is because we are on the wrong side of a political equation. Even our kinship in Christ did not shield us.

So they say, "if it takes killing 100 Palestinians to get a single Hamas militant then so be it". We are not humans in their eyes. But in God's eyes, no one can tell us that.

The hypocrisy and racism of the Western World is transparent and appalling. They always take the word of Palestinians with suspicion and qualification. No, we not treated equally. Yet on the other side, despite a clear track record of misinformation, lies, their words are almost always deemed infallible.

To our European friends: I never, ever want to hear you lecture us on human rights or international law again. And I mean this. We are not White. I guess it does not apply to us according to your own logic.

So here is my message: Gaza today has become the moral compass of the world. Gaza was held before October 7th and the world was silent. Should we be surprised that they're silent now? If you are not appalled by what is happening in Gaza, if you are not shaken to your core, there is something wrong with your humanity. And if we as Christians are not outraged by the genocide, by the weaponization of the Bible to justify it, there is something wrong with our Christian witness and we are compromising the credibility of our Gospel message.

If you fail to call this a genocide then that is on you. It is a sin and a darkness you willingly embrace. Some have not even called for a ceasefire - I'm talking about churches. I feel sorry for you.

We will be okay. Despite the immense blow we have endured, we the Palestinians will recover. We will rise. We will stand up again from the midst of destruction as we have always done as Palestinians - although this is by far maybe the biggest blow we have received in a long time. But we will be okay.

But for those who are complicit, I feel sorry for you. Will you ever recover from this? Your charity and your words of shock after the genocide won't make a difference. And I know these words of shock are coming, and I know people will give generously for charity. But your words won't make a difference. Words of regret won't suffice for you.

And let me say it: we will not accept your apology after the genocide. What has been done has been done. I want you to look at the mirror and ask: where was I when Gaza was going through a genocide?

[idylls-of-the-divine-romance]

Lord have mercy

I am getting so fucking sick and tired of the "abortion is not mentioned in the bible" argument from non christians. It's sucks and is stupid.

"Trinity" is not in the bible but we know it to be biblical.

"Capitalism" is not in the bible but it is idolatry.

"Abolish the death penalty" and "Abolish slavery" are no where in scripture but guess what. In my opinion there are few things more Christian than the abolition of both in all forms.

Abortion is murder. It's freaking murder and you support genocide. Whether it's genocide against Palestinians or against the unborn I do not fucking care. It's evil. Murder is evil. The death penalty is evil. Euthanasia is evil. Abortion is evil. It is fucking murder so do not fucking start with me about how "The bible doesn't say anything" or "Keep your religion out of politics"

My "religion" is for oppressed. For the voiceless. It is for the immigrant and the widow and the orphan and the poor and the afflicted and the oppressed and all innocent blood spilled upon the earth. My religion is against slavery and the police and the prison system and the inherent violence of the state. My religion is against blind adherence to institutions and organizations and is for the total abolition of the use of death as a weapon. So do NOT fucking tell me that my religion has nothing to say about abortion. Because in fact it has as much to say about abortion (murder) as it does about capitalism (idolatry) or immigrants (Trump supporting Nazi's get off my blog).

Fuck the absolute hell off.

Also like one more thing. Abortion was condemned in the early church. That's not an opinion; it's a fact. The earliest Christian texts condemn it with no mention of any distinction in seriousness between the abortion of a formed fetus and that of an unformed embryo. The Didache, Clement of Alexandria, Tertullian, John Chrysostom, Basil the Great, Augustine of Hippo, etc, all of these explicitly condemn abortion as at least as a grave sexual sin but mostly as murder. Early Christians disagreed on near everything and yet somehow all managed to agree that abortion was murder (even though they couldn't even agree on when the fetus became a person/got a soul). Gosh I fucking wonder why!!!

I am so tired. So. Tired. I'm tired of fascists who believe in mass deportations claiming to be "pro-life" (if you are not Consistent Life Ethic, you are not fucking "pro-life"). I'm tired of progressive christianity being firmly pro-abortion. I'm tired of conservative christians deciding that going to war against gay people and immigrants and supporting Trump is a good idea, which then makes their actually righteous stance against abortion to be frekaing laughable! I'm tired of pro-life people being motherfucking Zionists!?!? HOW ARE YOU A ZIONIST!?!?! HOW DO YOU LITERALLY SUPPORT A GENOCIDE!!!!!!

Actually no. I'm not tired. I am furious. I am furious that the pro-life movement is tired to the Alt-Right who are not actually pro anything but fascism and death. I am furious that they did nothing to stop born out of the womb babies from suffocating to death in hospitals. I am furious that christians had to be so fucking loud about being against gay people. I am furious that White Evangelicals had the audacity to be mad at Lecrae for speaking out against police brutality against black people. I am furious that christians did not just *get* that slavery was completely incompatible with the political ethic of Jesus. I am furious that christians still do not *get* that being anti-immigrant and pro-death and pro-capitalism are STILL completely incompatible with the political ethic of Jesus.

[hilacopter]

I think one of the things that annoys me the most about the anti Israel and anti Zionist arguments in general is like…

“Israel is illegal nation” (and the like etc) which, how are we presuming legality here? On which laws?

By who laws? The governments that voted to it? Making it legal? While not how most of the countries got established (getting voted on) the land in the 1948 plan (which the Arabs living on the land rejected) that was supposed to be Jewish there was already a Jewish population living there, with the lands they bought from their money. Never mind the fact that some of the Jews never left the land!

Gd law? Okay, let’s go by the Jewish gd since we talking about the Middle East. We weren’t banished from the land of Israel in the Torah by gd, but by the Romans who took over the land. I don’t recall any mention of it being gd who banished us.

So I don’t understand how Israel is illegal?

Jews, were already there. Some never left, some bought land there with their own money.

And like, why a Palestinian family that moved in 1930 to the land of the than British mandate of Palestine from let’s say Iraq have more rights to the land than the Jewish family who was living there for countries before them?

Bottom line, i just want to hear your thoughts on the matter and stuff.

-a tired and traumatized Israeli Jew that just want everything to end and for the hostages to be back home and is tired of hypocrisy

I think when they say that they mean international law, not that they really know what they're talking about. The recent ICJ ruling had people going "SeE ThIS Is PrOOf IsNOTreAl is aN iLLeGal ApARtHeid StaTe" when the ruling only referred to the West Bank settlements being illegal which, yeah, but they were acting like it referred to the whole of Israel (my guess is some people phrased it that way on purpose and the herd, not wanting to bother with pesky fact-checking, ate it up). Also as you said literally a lot of land in Israel was bought by Jews with money before the state was even established, which is something I barely see even people here in the jumblr space bring up. It's weird to me, I feel like that makes for a better argument against a pro-palestinian who'd rather die than acknowledge Jews being indigenous to the levant.

As for God's law I usually stay out of religious discussion because I am very secular. Though these people often say that Jews aren't indigenous to the levant and we're just going off of the bible (despite there being a ton of actual historical evidence) so I think they couldn't give less of a shit about religious law and religion in general (unless it's Islam because a lot of them really have a case of raging Islamophilia). I don't know barely anything about the Quran so I don't know Israel's validity by it's standards. If anyone with more religious knowledge than me wants to add then go ahead.

Why does that Palestinian family have more rights to the land than Jews who have been living them for centuries before? I wrote this again as a rethorical question because I wanted to try and answer from the average idiot goy's perspective, but as soon as I tried to formulate an argument in their shoes it fell apart. Their definition of indigeneity when it comes to this conflict is very flawed and simply put I think they'd rather base it on who's more oppressed and exotic to them than acknowledge the complicated history of the levant and the various groups of people who have and do live in it, their simple black and white narrative is just sooo much more convenient after all. They'd probably say that the Jewish family has a right to the land under Palestinian rule and resort to the happy dhimmi narrative.

I get that last part anon. The hypocrisy and double standards are getting on my nerves. But we gotta chin up because remember that we will outlive them. The hostages will come home as well, one way or another. !עם ישראל חי

[a-queer-seminarian]

I've been reading up on some of the resources you've provided regarding christian zionism for a while now but apologies that I'm still a little confused here and there.

i have a question, i was wondering what we can say to counter the ,chosen people and promised land, argument because a lot of what counter argument that would be given back is that the bible is absolute, God's word and should not be contended. how do we counter these absolutionist to show that what is happening is wrong but at the same time that we do still respect, love and believe in God?

at some point i do wonder if it is worth fighting it to those who are obviously unwilling to change their stance? and if the energy is better spent elsewhere instead?

To start with your last question, yes, I do think there comes a point when you realize you cannot change someone's mind, and you are wasting time and energy you could better spend elsewhere. (And if this is the kind of person who responds to any argument you could possibly make with "Well this is just what the Bible says," that's always a good clue they probably aren't very open to change.)

My tactic when this happens is to say something like "It's clear you aren't willing to hear another perspective right now, so I am going to end this conversation. But if something happens down the line that makes you more willing to consider my side, hit me up." That way they have somewhere to go if by some miracle they one day want to learn more, but I won't use up all my energy on them now when it's clearly useless.

You may come up with a different tactic, but whatever you want it to be, it's def good to consider it before a situation arises!

That being said, for other folks it is possible to get through!

I answered an ask over on my other blog with suggestions for talking to a friend who takes that "the Bible says Israel is a blessed nation" stance. One thing I suggested was choosing language that frames things as a conversation, not an argument; here's a bit from that pasted here:

For instance, in the scenario where she said “the Bible says we should always stand with Israel,” responding immediately with “no it doesn’t!!” would shut down conversation.

Instead, you might start with open-ended questions the two of you can explore together: “I wonder what the Bible means when it talks about Israel. Would the biblical authors recognize today’s Israel as being the Israel they were talking about? / Is the Israel of today the same as the Israel of the Bible?” “What does it mean to you to ‘stand with Israel’?” “Does that have to require sending them extreme military weapons?”

If they're open to pondering those questions informally together, at some point you might be able to share some further information. I highly recommend Christian Palestinian theologian Mitri Raheb's book Decolonizing Palestine, which includes (mostly in its second half) an interrogation of how people interpret the concept of biblical election or chosenness.

I have a detailed summary of his book at this link; I'll paste the pertinent parts below:

First off, in the book's intro, Raheb notes how conflating Israel the modern state and the "biblical" Israel has been an intentional part of Israeli propoganda since its founding (he explores this further in his history chapters):

“The settler colonial nature of the State of Israel is obvious, and the reality on the ground is crystal clear. The situation is not ‘complicated’ as some claim in order to blur the issue. International law is decisive on this issue, as the many UN resolutions testify. Yet, biblical passages and terms such as ‘divine rights,’ ‘land promise,’ ‘Judea,’ and ‘chosen people’ are constantly repeated to bestow the colonization of Palestine with biblical legitimacy and thus political legality. This terminology is used in church circles, popular events, as well at the highest political levels like the UN Security Council.”

His third chapter hones in on the theme of land — its centrality in scripture, and its centrality in the modern occupation of Palestine. How is this theological theme exploited as ideology? What are some decolonial Palestinian readings? Ultimately, how do we liberate theological minds from their invisible colonization?

Toward a Decolonial Theology of the Land

We need our theology to pay more attention to the geopolitical situation of Palestine, which includes the two hermeneutical keys of the land and the native people

Palestine has always been a land on the margins of three continents and “five regional powers that have determined its fate”; constantly getting pushed and pulled by these greater powers, constantly forced to adjust identity and boundaries within a changing context: “Adjustment, resistance, and liberation from occupation is a connecting thread of Palestine’s history from the second millennium BC until today”

Palestinian Jews have always been part of the native “people of the land” — but settler colonial Zionists are not part of the people of the land; “They are invaders and subcontractors to empires.”

Palestinians today who don’t fit a European framework are silenced, not considered dialogue partners — this includes Muslim Palestinians and Palestinian Christians, along with native, anti-Zionist Jews and Samaritans. But their experiences — “their suffering under occupation, their aspiration for liberation, their struggles and hopes” — are the kinds of voices that the Bible holds: “the Bible is the book that contains these voices, the voices of the colonized, not the colonizers.”

Finally, we get to chapter 4: Chosen People?, which hones in on biblical election and how it “constitutes a theological dilemma for the Palestinian people.” Ultimately he concludes,

“While the original context of chosenness was a feeling of powerlessness in the face of empire, chosenness today must be sited within the context of European nationalism, settler colonialism, and American exceptionalism.”

Raheb reminds us about the four distinct Israels:

The relatively short-lived Northern Kingdom of Israel

Biblical Israel as abstract theological concept describing “God’s people”

“Ancient Israel” as a modern construct “that confuses certain aspects of the biblical story with history, thereby projecting an exclusive ethno-national and religions state into the Bible”

Modern entity called the State of Israel

All these must be distinguished from each other, from Judaism, and people of Jewish faith

General issues with “election”

“Who is elected: individuals, a group of people, a nation? “Israel”? How do we define “Israel”? A race? A religion? A state? The church?”

And what does election mean for the un-elect? - 17th century Jewish philosopher Baruch Spinoza wondered if it even makes sense for God to divinely elect a particular group of people: “Can we, who live in a post-Enlightenment era of human rights and fundamental equality between people, believe in a God who discriminates between people, with some being elected, and others not elected or even some elected to be damned”? .

Palestinians are equated with un-elect biblical peoples — either: - The Philistines, enemies of “Israel” - The cursed Canaanites - Descendants of Ishmael (along with all Arabs), giving them a “lesser theological status” than the descendants of Isaac, i.e. the Israelies

“While some Christians may sympathize with the humanitarian situation of Palestinians, their emotional and theological bond remains with Israel because they are seen as God’s elected people with a unique entitlement.”

Here’s Raheb’s own decolonial perspective on election:

The Bible must be read as story, not history.

“God’s own story cannot be confined to such a short period of the universe’s history or reduced to one region, or, as a matter of fact, to one planet. God’s story is not the exclusive story of people with God.”

The Bible is the story of people with God — particular people with particular cultural and geographic backgrounds

Jews, Christians, and Muslims continue to relate to this particular story, but it’s not self explanatory; it needs to be retold and reinterpreted

We can respect different groups’ experiences of being “chosen” without making these beliefs ideology or treating them as objective facts

The biblical story is particular, but it “made history because of its relevance to the diverse contexts of imperial hegemonic oppression worldwide” — the Bible helps many find meaning in the face of empire - “This is why election can never mean entitlement to a particular land or people” — within scripture, we see that God’s interest is not only with one people.

“[E]lection is God’s business, and no one has a monopoly over it. God’s salvation surpasses all understanding, and God remains the God of surprises that all our theological systems cannot contain.”

Bringing in the geopolitics of the biblical story

“The region of Palestine was too small and lacked the geographical location and resources to develop into an empire;” instead its fate was dictated by the five empires that surrounded it

This peripheral existence is the “background behind the notion of election” — it’s a promise to the disenfranchised and the desperate, those crushed by Empire.

“Election was and will always be a statement of faith; it is solely a promise…to those weak and powerless.”

Later — when the northern region became Samaria and the southern region became Judaea — this notion of election would be weaponized to give one group religious entitlement over the other. .

We must “always keep in mind these two different and opposed religious utilizations of the notion of election: one as a message of hope for the weak and devastated, and one as a tool for religious and national ideology.”

[autistic-ben-tennyson]

PoE: Actual Thoughts

This is going to be my last post regarding the discourse that I was responsible for starting. A lot of people probably think I hate the movie and am Lily Orchard 2.0 because of what those like spot-the-antisemitism claim. I’ll be leaving my actual opinions on it as well as the fandom and why I don’t love it as much as I used to. Contrary to what Zionists like Emperorsfoot claim, I can think for myself and have my own beliefs.

TPoE used to be one of my favorite movies. I wrote an essay back in 9th grade encouraging people to watch it because it had great music, great animation and an emotional story one could appreciate regardless of their religious beliefs. I still think it’s a good piece of filmmaking and has its place in theological and historical discussions. James Baxter worked on some of the animation sequences and would later create iconic moments from shows like Adventure Time and Steven Universe.

So what’s the problem? Well, the reason my opinion towards has soured is multifaceted. Being an anime fan has played a role in me seeing it as just another movie as opposed to the greatest animated film ever due to watching movies such as Spirited Away, Suzume or The End of Evangelion. Its fandom is another thing I dislike. Some say you can’t let fandom ruin something for you but if a majority of the people in a fandom are jerks, then it’s valid to not want to engage.

While it was wrong for me to call it “Zionist propaganda”, I have gotten anon hate from its stans including suicide bait. So many of the people in the notes of the post as well as the OP were either transphobic radtrads like griseldafury21, “vote blue no matter what” liberals like Short-wooloo or all the fandom Zionists like Prismatic-bell. YouTube comments are full of “anti woke” creationists using it to trash modern Hollywood, which is terrible but not for the reasons they claim. Liberal Zionists do use it to support their view of themselves as perpetual victims who can do no wrong. Killing people is okay as long as they’re oppressive in their eyes, whether Egyptian or Palestinian.

So maybe I do dislike it but not because I think it’s a bad movie or propaganda, but because it’s fandom has soured me towards it. One could certainly use its liberation message as a commentary on the oppression of Palestinians but that probably won’t get any support from the movie’s top fans. The behavior of the hardcore fans is what has turned me off to it, especially their concern trolling over gofundme scams. Same reason why I’ve been less enthusiastic towards Steven Universe. Still has a place in my heart and was a big factor in my anime obsession but the amount of fans who are racist milquetoast liberals has pushed me away from the fandom. I don’t single out Jews for being Zionists either. I would be disappointed if Rebecca Sugar supported Israel but I’d feel the same about Makoto Shinkai, Hideaki Anno or Dwayne McDuffie, if he was still alive, and others I admire. I judge people based on their actions and principles, not their religion or ethnicity.

So that’s what I actually think of the movie and it’s fans. Some of the songs like “When you believe” are pretty emotional and as someone with a complicated relationship with my brother, the conflict between Moses and Ramses does get a tear out of me, even if that’s not what happened in the Bible. I still have fondness for it, but many of its hardcore fans have ruined it and people’s lack of willingness to criticize any aspect is disappointing. Criticizing it or SU does not make someone Lily Orchard or Lindsay Ellis as people can develop their own opinions without influence. The Prince of Egypt is a great work of art in my opinion but it’s not above criticism and the way people use it as well as other “wholesome” media as a shield should be talked about more.

[mariacallous]

Jewish parents in Maryland’s Montgomery County have no clue how their school district’s antisemitism investigation is proceeding. 

It’s been more than nine months since the U.S. Department of Education opened its Title VI civil rights probe into reports of antisemitic bullying, including at pro-Palestinian student protests, at the suburban Maryland district. The case was one of more than 100 investigations the department’s Office of Civil Rights has opened at colleges and K-12 districts since the Gaza war began, part of the Biden administration’s highly publicized efforts to combat rising campus antisemitism and Islamophobia.

Yet today, according to department records, the vast majority of those cases have yet to be resolved — including Montgomery County Public Schools’. And the parent activists who initially sounded the alarm on the district say they haven’t heard anything.

“If there is an investigation, it certainly doesn’t seem to be causing much concern,” Margery Smelkinson, one of the Jewish parents, told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency last week. “The process is completely opaque, and it’s hard not to conclude that nothing is actually being done.”

Smelkinson’s group, the Maryland Jewish Alliance, tried submitting their own Title VI complaint, in partnership with the right-wing Zionist Organization of America. The initial complaint was filed by a conservative activist with no connection to the district and without the group’s knowledge, based on an op-ed Smelkinson and another parent had written. By contrast, the complaint from the parents who actually lived there, she felt, was “far more detailed.”

Yet the office wouldn’t open theirs, because the less detailed one had beaten them to the punch — a sign, she believes, that the department is only doing “the bare minimum.”

Critics of the OCR’s handling of antisemitism complaints are hoping that will change during a second term for Donald Trump, who has proposed a radical overhaul of United States education policy, including shuttering the DOE altogether. He also wants to use the long arm of the law on pro-Palestinian, non-citizen campus protesters, having threatened to deport them.

If Trump were to follow through on closing the Department of Education, the Department of Justice would be a likely new home for campus civil rights issues including Title VI. Trump’s nominee for attorney general, Pam Bondi, has taken a hard-line approach against campus pro-Palestinian protesters. 

Other campaign promises, including threats to hold university endowments and accreditations hostage unless they curb what Trump calls “Marxist maniacs and lunatics,” have set off alarm bells among many education insiders and proponents of academic freedom. They worry about his nominee for education secretary, Linda McMahon, who has very little education experience, and note that Trump-friendly states like Texas and Oklahoma are more openly embracing a push to get Bible-tinged curriculum into public schools.

But some Jewish parents, if they’re not exactly welcoming all of these changes, see an opportunity in Trump’s education agenda. It was under his first administration, they point out, that the department expanded some Title VI protections for Jews, as outlined in a 2019 executive order on antisemitism.

“One can only assume this issue will be taken more seriously under his administration,” Smelkinson said.

Through a spokesperson, the Department of Education declined to comment for this story. But its top officials, including current Education Secretary Miguel Cardona and Catherine Lhamon, who oversees the Office of Civil Rights, have in the past year told JTA they place a high priority on fighting campus antisemitism in their department through Title VI. 

Major Jewish groups have taken this cue and seized on the statute. The American Jewish Committee has hosted webinars with Lhamon, and the Anti-Defamation League and others signed on to some civil rights complaints. Even more politically conservative Jews and Jewish groups, including ZOA, former Trump administration officials and Orthodox student-focused organizations, put stock in Biden’s intent to fight campus antisemitism and encouraged their networks to flood the department with Title VI complaints.

By some metrics, things are already better for Jews on campus. A new study from Harvard University found that the number of pro-Palestinian campus protests so far this semester — a common breeding ground for accusations of antisemitism — has plummeted to less than one-third of last semester. In part that is due to stricter enforcement of protests by schools that now must weigh the possibility of a federal investigation or a lawsuit much more heavily than they were in the immediate months after Oct. 7. 

But when it comes to Title VI, despite a flurry of opened investigations at major educational institutions, few of the cases opened during Biden’s term have been completed. 

A small number of Israel-related investigations opened since Oct. 7 have concluded with formal resolution agreements, or pledges from the schools to take specific steps to better address antisemitism. Those include the University of Michigan and the City University of New York, which both agreed to improve their antisemitism training; Brown University, which said it will rethink how it handles campus protests; and Muhlenberg College, which promised to take action against a tenured Jewish anti-Zionist professor who had been accused of harassing Jewish and pro-Israel students. (Muhlenberg’s agreement was reached days after the professor in question announced she had been fired over her advocacy.)

Some schools, as part of their resolution agreements, have hired Title VI coordinators to more effectively respond to future complaints. Such positions could soon become required by law, as in Maryland, where a legislator last week introduced a bill to require all colleges in the state to have such a staff role. 

One of those schools to voluntarily create such a role, New York University, also instituted a bold change to its harassment policy by declaring that targeting “Zionists” could violate it. Such changes have drawn criticism from progressives, who argue that Title VI has prompted a chilling effect on pro-Palestinian campus speech and courses.

Some Title VI cases that predated Oct. 7 by years, including one at the University of Illinois, have also formally concluded in the months since renewed attention was placed on the department.

On Tuesday, the ADL and the Jewish legal group Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law announced another resolution, this one involving Occidental College in Los Angeles — where, the April complaint alleged, Jewish and Israeli students were accosted by protesters on campus who sometimes uttered antisemitic slurs. The complaint also accused the college of not protecting Jewish students by agreeing to some demands of pro-Palestinian protesters who, shortly after Oct. 7, had occupied a building on campus. 

In response the school agreed to “consider” the International Holocaust Remembrance Association’s controversial definition of antisemitism, which progressive critics say chills legitimate criticism of Israel. (The resolution agreement includes a caveat that IHRA will be utilized “only where useful as ‘evidence of discriminatory intent.’”) The college also said it would incorporate some attacks on Zionists (including “applying a ‘no Zionist’ litmus test for participation in any Occidental activity”) into its bias and harassment training.

Other agreements include appointing a director of Jewish student life (and one for Muslim student life), and agreeing to host lectures and workshops about “the connections between Jewish identity, Israel and Zionism.”

Agreements like the one reached at Occidental could be seen as a win for many pro-Israel Jewish groups who have been pushing the IHRA definition for years (it was included in Trump’s 2019 executive order), as well as a sign of how Title VI enforcement appears to be aligning more and more closely with their longstanding goals for policing discussions of Israel on campuses.

But for every resolution, there are many more in the department’s backlog. Many Title VI cases at high-profile schools remain active, including three at Columbia University; one at Harvard; two at Cornell; and others at major public school districts in New York, San Francisco, Chicago and Oakland. The department has also continued to open new cases on a weekly basis, though at a slower clip than its height this past winter.

(The civil rights office does not disclose details about its ongoing investigations, including whether a case involves allegations of antisemitism or other civil rights violations, but JTA has independently verified that many if not all of those listed above involve Israel-related matters.)

For Kenneth Marcus, the founder of the Brandeis Center and a former Trump official, the president-elect’s plans for education — even his hopes of dismantling the department — should be welcomed by Jews.

“It’s not entirely clear that creating the Department of Education was so good for education, and so it’s not any more clear that closing it would be bad,” Marcus, who headed the department’s civil rights office in Trump’s first term, told JTA. He added that Trump has demonstrated a particular interest in campus antisemitism, including by vowing to deport pro-Palestinian campus protesters, and that his first administration’s track record should comfort Jews: “No president during our lifetimes has done more to address campus antisemitism from a policy perspective than President Trump did.”

Other major Jewish players in the TItle VI space said they still believed in the law’s effectiveness in addressing campus antisemitism.

“Title VI has been, and continues to be, a vital and effective tool for fighting antisemitism and protecting Jewish students from hostile environments and/or pervasive harassment,” Laura Shaw Frank, director of AJC’s Center for Education Advocacy, told JTA in a statement. “We are confident that investigations will continue under the incoming Trump administration and urge reporting of any and all incidents of antisemitism.” 

“Regardless of the future of the DOE there will still remain the need for Title VI enforcement,” Rabbi David Markowitz, executive vice president at the Orthodox campus outreach group Olami, told JTA in a statement. “Another agency will need to pick up the responsibility or they will need to work with states to fight antisemitism on campus.”

Since Oct. 7, Olami has taken an active role in advocating for stricter federal enforcement of Title VI. This spring the group held a press conference on Capitol Hill urging changes to its reporting system. At the conference, one of Olami’s biggest advocates in Congress was Republican Rep. Nancy Mace of South Carolina, who last week introduced legislation intended to keep a newly elected transgender representative from using women’s restrooms on Capitol Hill.

Not all conservative campus antisemitism activists are upset with the Biden administration’s handling of the issue. 

“I have nothing but respect for the Office for Civil Rights’ handling of my Title VI complaints,” said Zachary Marschall, the editor of the conservative college-focused site Campus Reform and a frequent filer of Title VI antisemitism complaints. “The staff remain communicative and committed to doing their jobs.”

Marschall has filed dozens of complaints at campuses across the country, sometimes based on social media reports; Jews and officials at several of these campuses have criticized his approach as meddling. But, he said, federal investigators have taken them seriously. Brown’s resolution stemmed from his own complaint, and another one of his, at Temple University, is also negotiating a resolution, he said.

Without commenting on what Trump could do to the campus antisemitism fight, Marschall said the problem “is now a bottom-up process that primarily involves college administrators, law enforcement, and prosecutors,” rather than the federal government.

To Marcus, the possibility that Title VI enforcement could move to the Justice Department is a positive development: A Justice mandate to fight campus antisemitism, he says, would likely bring more federal lawsuits against schools. Since he left the Trump administration, the Brandeis Center has filed both lawsuits and Title VI complaints against schools for alleged antisemitism, in some cases partnering with the ADL.

(Lawsuits, if they progress to a trial or a settlement, can be more powerful tools for holding institutions accountable than agreements reached by the Department of Education, which can only dangle federal funding as leverage. But lawsuits are also more expensive and time-consuming than filing a Title VI complaint, making them less realistic for individuals unconnected to groups like the Brandeis Center.)

While other Jews have been frustrated by Title VI, in Marcus’s view, they should keep filing complaints.

“This would be the worst time to stop filing OCR complaints,” he said. “We certainly won’t stop filing OCR complaints anytime soon. After all, there’s a new administration coming into power.”

[alarajrogers]

Friendly reminder from a former-Catholic-now-atheist that today is a great day to remember that "Zionist" does not mean "Benjamin Netanyahu's butt monkey", "eager supporter of the murder of Palestinians", or even "supporter of everything Israel does, right or wrong." It means "someone who believes the Jews should have their own homeland, and preferably, it should be in the place where they originated, that they are indigenous to." Which happens to be Israel.

If you find yourself thinking that Zionism, by itself, is terrible, maybe it's because you're asking one of the following questions! Well, they all have good answers.

Why do Jews need a homeland? Well, first off, why does any ethnic group need a homeland? Secondly, though... do you know anything about antisemitism? It's not just the Holocaust, you know -- Jews have been persecuted in every country they entered, on Earth, since the Romans forced them out of their homeland 2,000 years ago. And the reason they were persecuted? They were outsiders. They didn't do things the way everyone else did. If you're queer or neurodivergent, don't tell me you can't relate to that!

But antisemitism is a thing of the past! Buddy, I don't know how to tell you that your own movement has inspired violence against random Jews. And that the belief that "thinking a Jewish homeland is a good idea" makes someone evil is, um, antisemitic.

But that's not what Zionism means! Zionism is unconditional support for Israel! Right, and socialism means communism, and communism means totalitarian thought control and forcing cis people to be trans and straight people to be gay. What? The right wingers say it, so it must be true, right? It's the people who hold a belief who get to say what it means, not the people who are ideologically opposed to them.

Okay, but what Israel is doing to Palestine is evil and unforgivable. No disagreement there, buddy! What Israel is doing to Palestine is evil and unforgivable. So is what my country, the United States, did to Iraq 20 years ago, but last I checked, if there's anyone around declaring that the United States should not exist because of what we did to Iraq, they are pretty fringe and no one cares what they think. Whereas this belief that Israel should not exist because of its extreme cruelty toward Palestine is getting pretty mainstream on the left!

Okay, but Israelis are colonizers. Is there a statute of limitations on land-back? Israel is the ancient Jewish homeland that they were forced out of 2,000 years ago. (Anyone who tells you that this isn't true is wrong, and if they're Christian, they're also actively lying, because the Christian Bible talks a lot about Jews living in Israel, a lot of our Christmas songs mention it, it's, like, a fundamental part of the story of Jesus, which all Christians are expected to know at least a little bit. It is understandable for Muslims to be misinformed on this point, but Christians know better.) So no, Israelis aren't colonizers, not in Israel-qua-Israel, although the assholes trying to push Palestinians out of the West Bank after Israel signed treaties saying the West Bank belongs to the Palestinians absolutely are.

But the Palestinians were there first! Um... no. What is confusing you is that the Jews were forced off their own land 2,000 years ago. Since then, the Palestinians moved in. It is undeniable that Palestinians were forced off land they had lived on for generations in order to create Israel. But if you're gonna argue that living on land for many generations means you have more right to it than the people who originally held it, you've just shot every land back movement in the foot.

That's not fair to the Palestinians! I agree with you. And if I was forced off my property because Native Americans had it first, and told to go back to my homeland -- which, because I am a mutt of Irish, Italian, German and probably random others' descent, is nowhere -- that would be pretty unfair to me, too, since I didn't participate in stealing it from the Native Americans. Good thing no land back movement that anyone takes seriously is actually demanding such a thing, or there would be billions of displaced refugees of European, African, Asian and mixed heritage being forced to live exactly nowhere. Which is why the Palestinians were given half the land mass of ancient Judea, because goddamn, this situation is unfair to everyone. Jews deserve a homeland and so do Palestinians and it happens to be the same territory. There is no facile "correct" answer here.

Israel is an ethnostate. So is England, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Korea, etc, etc, what's your point? Any land that wasn't taken over by colonizers is technically an ethnostate. However, there are a lot of non-Jews in Israel. Some of whom, the Druze, had several of their children recently killed by a bombing attack by terrorists who are supposedly pro-Palestine, so, um, if an ethnostate by nature oppresses those not of the ethnicity, then those people, oppressed by Israel, should have had common cause with Palestine, right? Yet pro-Palestinian terrorists killed them. Kind of does a lot of damage to the "Israel shouldn't exist because it's an ethnostate" argument. Also, what's Palestine but an ethnostate? And how do you argue for land back movements in colonized territories and also say "it is bad for an indigenous people to be in control of their own homeland?"

The problem with Israel and Palestine, as others have pointed out, is that it is too complicated to have facile solutions. Long-term antisemitism among Muslims prevented the Palestinians from reaching a good mutual agreement with Israel when it was founded 75 years ago, and there has been enormous bad blood and bad actions on both sides ever since. Both sides have hardened into radical positions like "wipe out all the Jews" or "every Palestinian is a potential terrorist and should be treated as such, even babies." This started because of a horrific unprovoked terrorist attack on civilians (which, by the way, is not an effective strategy for "freedom fighters" to get what they want, ever), which lead to the massive and literal overkill of Israel turning Gaza into a parking lot and murdering thousands of innocent people by bombing civilian targets to get rid of Hamas (which, by the way, is not an effective strategy against terrorists, ever).

This doesn't mean the Jews were wrong for wanting a homeland, or wanting it to be on the land that was stolen from them 2,000 years ago by the Romans. It is also not wrong for the Palestinians to want safety in their homeland, particularly since they are not the Romans and weren't responsible for the initial expulsion of the Jews. Both sides are right in what they want, and both sides are horrifically wrong in how they're trying to get it. But being "anti-Zionism" means you are explicitly against an indigenous group who have been persecuted and oppressed for two thousand years returning to their own lands and ruling themselves. I mean. If you're in favor of landback for any other indigenous group, but you're virulently against it for the Jews and only for the Jews, I don't know what to tell you, buddy. That's antisemitism. The Israelis currently engaging in horrific tactics against a civilian population does not negate the necessity of Israel to exist for the safety of the world's Jewish population, who, again, have been persecuted and oppressed for being different than their neighbors, not for anything they actually did, for two thousand years. If you're queer, neurodivergent, a religious minority such as Wiccan or atheist, an ethnic minority such as African-American, or basically anybody who is not an absolutely normal, average member of the society around them... how the fuck do you justify this belief?

Just to repeat for the people who can't read, I am not Jewish. I am a former Catholic who is now an atheist. I just, you know, happen to not be disgustingly antisemitic, so I notice when Jews are treated differently than other people in a situation that's at all similar to theirs. Try learning some history, and paying some attention, and remembering that whatever you learned about Jews from antisemites, it was wrong and you should be re-educating yourself. A nation that commits atrocities does not need to cease to exist, or why is Germany still here? Why is the USA? Why is England? A nation that commits atrocities needs to stop committing them, and make reparations, and try to prevent it from happening again. And there are many Israelis, and many non-Israeli Jews who believe Israel should exist, who want to make that happen. Condemning "Zionists" because Israel is currently engaged in atrocities when you are not in favor of forcibly ending the existence of England as a nation (not Great Britain, I'm talking about England), or the US, or Germany... boy oh boy, I'm smelling antisemitism on the grill there, and it smells rancid. Knock it off. You can support the Palestinians and be absolutely opposed to the actions of the Israeli government without hating everyone in the world that thinks Israel's very existence is a thing that should continue.

[frozenemus]

Polite reminder that rendering the land completely desolate isn't something one does when they're simply engaging in retaliation against a group of individuals. In fact Israel's so-called "retaliation" against Hamas checks off every single section of The United Nation's Genocide Risk Analysis Framework. Quite ironic considering that many of the UN's leaders are denying or funding this tragedy. But if Israel's actions aren't enough to convince you that this entire thing is genocide, how about we let Israel say it themselves: "You must remember what Amalek has done to you, says our Holy Bible. And we do remember." - Benjamin Netanyahu (source)

Not only does this compare Palestinians to Amalek — an ancient enemy of the Israelites in the Hebrew Bible — later verses (1 Samuel 15:1-9) state that exacting punishment against Amalek means the complete annihilation of its people.

~~~~~~~~~~~~ "Erase Gaza from the face of the earth. Let the Gazan monsters rush to the southern border and flee into Egypt, or die. And let them die badly. Gaza should be wiped off the map." - Galit Distel-Atbaryan, member of Knesset/Parliament (source) ~~~~~~~~~~~~ "Total erasure of Gaza, total and not a human life spared." - Eyan Golan, popular Israeli singer (source)

~~~~~~~~~~~~ "Erase the memory of them. Erase them, their families, mothers and children. These animals can no longer live. Every Jew with a weapon should go out and kill them. If you have an Arab neighbor don’t wait. Go to his home and shoot him." - Ezra Yachin, Israeli Army reservist (source) ~~~~~~~~~~~~

So yeah, this isn't retaliation. This is genocide that's using retaliation as a poorly-veiled excuse.

[manonfire63-blog]

Satan's Schemes (2 Corinthians 2:11)

I used to be on Reddit. I was there to talk about God and God things. I participated on /r/religion for awhile. On /r/religion, there was a Satanist, and he gave AMA's. He did one particular AMA on Black Magic Satanism. Scanning through what he wrote, it all made sense to me. I could see what he was saying. I will explain it in context of God, and the Bible, so that you may be aware. There is an Objective Universe. Christianity claims objectivity. A Black Magic Satanist was working to make changes on how people perceived the Objective Universe. They did this through Points of Intersection. False Prophet Muhammad, he came to the ancestors of Ishmael and told them that it was Ishmael who was to be sacrificed and not Isaac. All the Prophets of the Bible, they knew it to be Isaac who was to be sacrificed. This was a point of Pride, also a Point of Intersection. It was a lie that changed how people perceived. In 1960, in the US, many people may have known "Bad Company Corrupt Good Character." This is a proverb. It is also a Bible verse. (1 Corinthians 15:33) In the 1970's, there was a band called Bad Company singing the song "Bad Company." Bad Company, it became a good thing? Was something wickedly awesome? Were people confused and called good evil, and evil good? (Isaiah 5:20) Bad Company would be a point of intersection. In December 2024, given I was to ask some college students "What comes to mind when I say Bad Company?" What did they think of? The Bible verse or the Band. Given we do some research, are there ties to the band Bad Company and Western Occultism? There is. Am I calling Muhammad a Black Magic Satanist? He received a particular something particular. It is odd the Unholy Alliance between Islam, and Secular Humanists, were Pro-Palestinians protestors on college campus, and gay rights secular humanists, are allies. The enemy of my enemy is my friend? Around Academia, when someone is talking about "Intersectionalism," it doesn't necessarily mean they were into Satanic Occultism, but they were taught in it. We may need to make some probing questions or comments. I like to name drop Aleister Crowley and see how someone responds. Given they seem very familiar, or had strong opinion, there may be guilt there. Part of Spiritual Warfare has been a war of words, a war of thoughts. (2 Corinthians 10:5) How does man perceive himself? How does man perceive God? Some people, they have lied, and deceived and worked to keep men away from God.

[stephenjaymorrisblog]

Warsaw

Gaza City

While Gaza Burns

(A different take on the Middle East)

Stephen Jay Morris

10/10/2023

©Scientific Morality

            If you should come across two bears in the wild, fighting each other, you best run away as fast as you can. Regardless of which bear wins, you too will die, if you stick around.

This adage I heard many years ago. What does it mean? It means that when two evil forces are fighting each other, you don’t have to take a side. Let’s say that White nationalists are having a war with the Taliban. Would I support either of the two?

So, now—let me get this out the way, Okay? Fuck Hamas! Fuck Benjamin Netanyahu! Got it? Hamas wants to make Palestine an Islamic state. Netanyahu wants to make Israel a Jewish Theocracy. He wants to get rid of all Arabs living in Israel. He is a Jewish separatist; a lukewarm Rabbi Kahani.

As it stands now, Israel is a secular democracy. The Likud Party is a war mongering, right wing party, one of the many parties in Israel. That is Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s party. They are a bigger threat than Hamas. Ask the thousands of Israeli protesters who wanted him ousted as Prime Minister. He wants to weaken the Israeli Supreme Court. Essentially, he wants to be Israel’s dictator.

Meanwhile, in Gaza City. Hamas—the flunkies of Iran—is putting innocent Palestinians at risk by breaching Israel’s border and kidnaping Israeli women and children, beating elderly Jews, and raping female Jews. Oh, did you see the video of a jihadist trying to behead a Jew with a backhoe? He couldn’t get the job done. I guess he couldn’t find an ax. I saw this video on mainstream media. Man, Israeli propaganda is a ratings grabber! What about the videos on how when an Israeli bomb falls on a building in Gaza, it crushes the occupants to death. The B.B.C. might show you that one.  Yeah, those videos shown on major networks are supposed to enrage you, to make you think, “Those Palestinians are vicious animals! Kill them all!”

Those videos don’t faze me at all. I know war propaganda when I see it. Doesn’t mean I am a heartless sociopath. I am just a cynical, 69-year-old with a callous heart after having seen how propaganda works.

Now I want to say a few words about the Authoritarian Left who support this Islamic group. Are you fucking nuts!?! The Left is supposed to be anti-religion, no matter whom they are! A lot of Tankies and Trots support Islamic groups because they represent oppressed, Third World people opposed to American Imperialism. Are you fucking stupid!? Islamic groups will oppress their own people! As an Anti-Authoritarian Leftist, I hate the religious Right, whether they be Jewish, Christian, Islamic or even Hindu!

You American, Right wing Chuds, are a hopeless case. Of course, you support Israel! In your Bible it says that Israel is where Jesus will be when he returns. It will be the headquarters of Christianity and Israel will become be a Christian state. Oh, speaking of Right wing dumbasses, Donald Trump couldn’t stand the fact that Israel was getting all the news coverage lately. So, he had to insert himself by jumping on the Congressional Republicans’ bandwagon and declaring that President Biden is at fault for inflaming the Israel/Palestine war.  Shut up, Donald! Go away!

How will this conflict end? I don’t know! However, nothing good will come out of it, of that I am certain. Both sides will lose. Oh, one question I have: What happened to Israel’s Iron Dome? Somebody forgot to plug it in?  I wouldn’t feel too sorry for Israel; they do have the Nuclear Bomb.

I said it before, and I’ll say it again: Being Jewish is not my ideal race for being. I wish I had been born Italian; Irish; Shit! Even Polish Catholic! Am I self-hating Jew? No, not really. In the early 20th Century, in New York City, there were Jewish Anarchists’ newspapers written in Yiddish! That’s the Jewish identity I crave. Did you know there are more Jews in the United States than in Israel? There are 7,300,000 in the U.S. and 7,106,000 in Israel. I guess that this diaspora is too cool to Aliyah to the holy land of Israel. What does that mean? Look it up.

P.S. Dear Lefties: Stop calling Israel an Apartheid state! Palestinians are a nationality, not a race of people. Racially, Arabs and Jews are Semitic. As far as Indigenous Americans go, they were and are victims of American apartheid, as are Mexicans, Asians, and Blacks. But, Israel and Arabs? No such deal.

חופש לכל האנשים על פני כדור הארץ

[bleeding-star-heart]

So I found this quote on a Jewish person's post advocating for queer people to stand up for Palestine

And so, once again, it is time for me to repeat my summary of what I said on @assignedmale 's comic: There are homophobes everywhere. The existence of potentially homophobic Palestinians does not justify carpet-bombing Gaza into oblivion. That logic is like saying it's okay to lace the communion wafers with anthrax just because some of the people attending Mass are rad-trads. (For those not in the know, rad-trads, also known as radical traditionalists, are a subsection of Catholics known for being massively homophobic). And just as I shouldn't need to tell you that lacing communion wafers with anthrax is wrong, you shouldn't need to be told that carpet-bombing an entire city is also wrong. And neither should the IDF or their superiors. Plus, the original Twitter poster is correct: the U.S. has no right to be tarring anyone with the brush of transphobia/homophobia. To borrow a phrase from the Bible, it is indeed a "speck in their eye, beam in yours/ours" situation. Indeed, I doubt many Americans would care about or even disagree with potential Palestinian homophobes if it wasn't for this pathetic attempt to justify the unjustifiable. This is what many might call homo-nationalism. I, personally, would call it imperialist faux-allyship. A.k.a. pretending to care about a marginalized group in order to justify imperialism. Because to me, I saw a similar phenomenon as a child with the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Only then, the line was "the Iraqis/Afghans treat their women badly/are misogynistic, therefore invading the Middle East is justified". The main difference is, back then the group being used as a political shield was cishet women. Now it's the LGBTQ+ folks. (I'm going to have to repeat this a LOT, aren't I?)

[uiruu]

you know, i didn't really understand the situation in Palestine and Israel until this year. like i didn't really know what what the West Bank was, or about the situation in Gaza, and i barely knew about Hamas. nobody teaches us this. and now i feel angry that for my whole life, everyone who mentioned Israel always talked about how complicated the situation was, which is probably part of why i struggled to learn about it. i was expecting it to be complicated and nuanced. but it isn't. growing up, of course i was told that both Israel and Palestine had legitimate claims and there was no inherently right or wrong party, it was just an extremely complex issue. nobody actually sat down and taught us the step by step history, or what the complexities were, they just told us that is was complex and that was it. now that i know a lot more about the history and the current situation, it's not fucking complicated at all. it's a european apartheid state that's only been around for like 80 years. it's not a millennia-long conflict. it's pretty cut and dry. are Hamas's actions complicated? sure, i suppose so. are they heros? no, of course not. but their actions make sense as a response to the situation they were born into. are Israel's actions complicated? not even a little bit. there is no justification for the IDF's actions. with Hamas, you can understand what makes them lash out and do things as a response to the starvation of their people. killing people is bad, but they want to be free. with the IDF, they just want to kill. they don't want to be free, they are already free. they want other people to not be free. what's simpler than that? the Palestinian people are endangered due to violent genocide, and I'm supposed to believe that this is a complicated issue? that there are possible justifications for why that would be happening to them?

zionists will say that Israel's nuance comes from them being victims of the Holocaust, and Jewish people having a right to that land. and sure, fine, if it means a lot to them to live in their holy land, I'm sure it wouldn't have been a big deal for Jewish Holocaust survivors to move to that part of the world and live in harmony with the Palestinians, who would probably have been pretty empathetic. if Palestinians began killing innocent Holocaust survivors who just simply moved there to live a better life and be friends, yeah, that would be pretty complicated. but what makes it cut-and-dry is that Israelis didn't just move to Palestine and coexist with Arabs, they forced Arabs out. they killed them. they erase their culture wherever they can. they renamed the place for them, as if they're the same people who lived in that part of the world thousands of years ago, which they aren't.

the Jewish faith originates there, yeah, sure. Islam also just simply originates from the Jewish faith. the Islamic Arabs in Palestine are the continuation of the Jewish people who lived there millennia ago. the white European Jews are not. sure, demographics shift over time, and surely the Arabs there today are not really the same ethnicity as the people who lived in Jerusalem in like 2000 BC or whatever. but do the white Europeans think that they are? you think the Jewish people in the Bible were white?

and look, okay, let's assume they're right. let's assume the Jewish people in the Bible looked like the white Europeans who have been settling there for the past 80 years. does that give them the right to force people out of their homes and slaughter them? all human beings originated in Africa. do you think it's justified for Europeans to go "reclaim" Africa because it was "theirs" millions of years ago?

and sure, the victims of the Holocaust wanted a place where they could be themselves and protect themselves. on a surface level, i get that. if every single Jewish person all moved there at once, that would be a bit complicated, but it's not that. the Jews who are not in Israel outnumber the Jews in Israel. so i think pretty uncomplicatedly, plain as day, Israel just straight up does not actually represent any sort of Jewish stronghold or homeland, as for most Jewish people, it's not their homeland and they want nothing to do with the genocide happening there. the fact that Israel considers non-Zionist Jews to not even be Jewish at all really goes to show that it's not about Judaism for Israel. it would be complicated if it was. but it's not. so it isn't.

idk. this is a ramble. hopefully it makes sense. i might delete it later.