#when palestinians are killed at unprecedented rates AT THE SAME TIME as netanyahu's circle literally spreads antisemitism
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corbinite · 4 months ago
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How do you establish a state that exists for one ethnicity in a region where another marginalized ethnicity was the majority without ethnic cleansing and ethnic dominance though? What does "a state of their own" mean for the people who already lived there and by definition will not be subjectified by that state? How do you establish and especially maintain an ethnic state whose territory overwhelmingly contained human beings of a different ethnicity? How is that achieved?
Every time I post something referencing the very real humanitarian crisis in Palestine, my "for you" page changes and becomes filled with recommended posts that contain the most vile antisemitic shit.
It makes me so sad, because it reminds me of what an awful job that a movement that was supposed to be about advocating for Palestinian lives has done with boundary maintenance. It is so compromised that social media algorithms don't appear able to differentiate between advocacy on behalf of Palestinians and antisemitic content. The crossover between the two has become enough that a user who engages with content of one kind is recommended content of another. People who are not educated on antisemitism and the covert symbolism it uses might not recognize it right away, so we are seeing an entire group of people, convinced that they are participating in a civil rights advocacy movement also being indoctrinated into a separate hate movement, under the impression that these two movements are the same.
With such poor boundaries being maintained between these two ideally separate movements, and such overlap growing, how long can I honestly maintain that these are two separate movements?
Meanwhile, innocent Palestinians are being bombed, children are starving, far-right governments on both sides of the conflict are gloating in the support they get from American conservatives and leftists respectively, and functionally, I hear nobody advocating for peace anymore, only the destruction of their enemies. Palestinians are being so incredibly demeaned, by both the people who want to destroy them and their sovereignty, and the people who claim to be supportive of them.
Sane, rational people who are advocating for peaceful solutions are disregarded and voices on the fringe are centered. People are witnessing what they interpret as a genocide unfolding and in response are advocating for a counter-genocide. Can they not see how this actively impedes the peace process? They give legitimacy to (false) far-right Israeli nationalist claims of Palestinian statehood as an inherent danger to the safety of the Jewish people, and demean the Palestinian people by suggesting that what they want is revenge and not to live their lives in peace. They've made questions about the legitimacy of Hamas, an evil terrorist organization, central to the movement, instead of what should be the priority, that innocent people are suffering and that this is unacceptable. They have redefined and reappropriated Jewish words to use as antisemitic slurs and convinced their audience that using these slurs is not antisemitism.
Meanwhile, capitalizing on the above mentioned antisemitism, those who want to harm the Palestinian people, deny them statehood, are using the words and actions of these activists as ideological ammunition to fire up their anti-Palestinian base. Donald Trump literally called Joe Biden a Palestinian at the presidential debate as a slur. Republicans are using the word "Palestinian" as a slur. Netanyahu (possibly one of the worst people involved in this entire situation), in his speech to congress, was able to point to the very real antisemitic actions of activists to further cement support for him personally. By the way, saying how antisemitic activists harm Palestinians shouldn't have to be the rhetorical point we resort to. The fact that antisemitism hurts Jewish people is enough to make it a bad thing and is enough to make us avoid doing it, right?
I'm tired of turning in one direction and saying "You should NEVER say something like that about Palestinians" and then turning in the other and saying "You should NEVER say something like that about Jews". It should not have to be said that condemning the very existence of one of two ethnic groups in their shared homeland is unacceptable, and yes, it is their shared homeland, because they both live there and are both from there. It should not have to be said that you should understand what a word means before using it to insult people. Here I am in fact talking about the word Zionist, because that is a family of various movements, some of which are worthy of condemnation, but frankly, the basic premise of Zionism does not demean or degrade Palestinians at all, because it simply is the belief that Jewish people have the right to return to and form communities in their homeland.
I'm kind of opening myself up to get a lot of criticism here, but I wanted to get these thoughts out, because I have been finding them enormously frustrating. My heart breaks for all the innocent Palestinians who are suffering and have a lackluster movement advocating on their behalf, and my heart breaks for all the Jewish people who have lost friends to antisemitic conspiracy. My heart breaks for the victims of 10/7 and their families, as well as the Jewish community who was interrupted in the mourning of their losses. My heart breaks for all of the Palestinians who have lost friends and family in the subsequent destruction in Gaza and the immense violence and famine we are seeing.
Please root your activism in peace and compassion, not hatred and destruction. Please think before you speak about entire groups of people. Learn about what words mean before you use them to condemn others. Learn about Jewish people, Palestinian people, their lives, their cultures, and why they both feel such a strong connection to the land. Make this about healing, love, and reconciliation, and not about being right.
#it's not a profound and unwarranted leap#that's what an ethnostate is#there is no way to establish and maintain an ethnostate without ethnic violence#i have seen some disgusting antisemitism since oct 7th make no mistake#there should be no room for this 'synagogue of satan' or 'the US is captured' bs#but then every single opposition to israel gets blamed for antisemitism?#meanwhile netanyahu's son literally shares memes literally depicting happy merchants puppeting the US#how are we supposed to focus on combatting antisemitism and treating that as an equal priority#when palestinians are killed at unprecedented rates AT THE SAME TIME as netanyahu's circle literally spreads antisemitism#while netanyahu's circle ONLY treats opposition to israel as antisemitism and permits every vile antisemitic thing their allies say#how are we supposed to treat the; yes; vile things people are saying as just as high a priority as the scores of civilians being killed now?#a genocide is kicking up existing old prejudices and then those prejudices are being used to excuse and justify everything the state does#a bunch of paternalistic white neoliberals who volunteer while singing kumbaya isn't gonna do shit to break that cycle#the system of imperial dominance and ownership in the middle east needs to be dismantled#and yes that means dismantling the idea that the land is inherently for any one ethnic group#and i do want to state that the people reblogging the first version of the post don't see any of the other stuff and have good intentions#ESPECIALLY the pro-palestine jewish people reblogging the first version of the post#it's a scary time to be jewish or have jewish loved ones and i don't blame anyone for not seeing red flags when they're trying to feel safe#for what it's worth i also don't think op is being malicious#any more than any western liberal is when they make similar comments about 'peace' for the west's other conflicts#all that said#stopping this genocide and blocking my tax dollars from it is my number one priority#i want everyone to feel safe but people are being killed right here right now and that has to be my focus#it has to be
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