#and i heard there is a big day in Israel this year

[taurusvoid]

Do people who have birthdays on the holidays or the observances have this weird spiritual connection to these days or it's just me?

Being both Ukrainian & born on 26 April made me feel everything related to Chornobyl very personally because I associate all the talks on the observance say with my birthday since childhood. Is it messed up?

This pic is completely out of context (a snapshot from @AT_nocnotext Twitter account) but I feel like it on a completely different level)

[matan4il]

Today is Erev Yom Ha'Shoah (Eve of Holocaust Memorial Day) in Israel. It will be observed by Jews outside of Israel, too.

The Hebrew date was chosen to honor the outbreak of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. It's also a week before Erev Yom Ha'Zikaron Le'Chalalei Ma'archot Yisrael (Eve of Israel's Memorial Day for its Fallen Soldiers and Terror Victims), which is itself observed a day before Yom Ha'Atzmaut Le'Yisrael (Israel's Independence Day). A lot of people have remarked on the connection between the three dates. On Yom Ha'Atzmaut, we celebrate our independence, which allows us to determine our own fate, and defend ourselves without being dependent on anyone else, right after we remember the price in human life that we have paid and continue to pay for this independence, and a week before we mourn the price we've had to pay for not getting to have self defence during the Holocaust. NEVER FORGET that in one Nazi shooting pit alone (out of almost two thousand) during just 2 days (Erev Yom Kippur and Yom Kippur 1941), more Jewish men, women and kids were slaughtered than in the 77 years since Israel's Independence War was started by the Arabs. This unbreakable connection between the living and the dead, between our joy and our grief, is often addressed with the Hebrew phrase, במותם ציוו לנו את החיים, "With their death, they ordered us to live."

On this Erev Yom Ha'Shoah, I'd like to share with you some data, published on Thursday by Israel's Central Bureau for Statistics (source in Hebrew).

The number of Jews worldwide is 15.7 million, still lower than it was in 1939, before the Holocaust, 85 years ago (that is what a genocide looks like demographically).

7.1 million Jews live in Israel (45% of world Jewry) 6.3 million Jews live in the US (40% of world Jewry)

Here's the data for the top 9 Jewish communities in the world:

There are about 133,000 Holocaust survivors currently living in Israel. Most (80%) live in big cities in central Israel. Around 1,500 are still evacuated from their homes in northern and southern Israel due to the war (back in January, on International Holocaust Remembrance Day, there was a report about 1,894 survivors who also became internal refugees due to the war. Source in Hebrew). One Holocaust survivor, 86 years old Shlomo Mansour, is still held hostage in Gaza. He survived the Farhud in Iraq.

I haven't seen any official number for how many survivors had been slaughtered as a part of Hamas' massacre, despite everyone here being aware that Holocaust survivors had been murdered on Oct 7, such as 91 years old Moshe Ridler. Maybe, as we're still discovering that some people thought to have been kidnapped during the massacre, were actually killed on that day, no one wants to give a "final" number while Shlomo has not yet been returned alive.

Out of all Israeli Holocaust survivors, 61.1% were born in Europe (35.8% in the countries of the former Soviet Union, 10.8% in Romania, 4.9% in Poland, 2.9% in Bulgaria, 1.5% in Germany and Austria, 1.3% in Hungary, 4.2% in the rest of Europe), 36.6% were born in Asia or Africa (16.5% in Morocco, 10.9% in Iraq, 4% in Tunisia, 2.6% in Libya, 2.1% in Algeria, 0.5% in other Asian and African countries) and 2.3% were born elsewhere.

Out of all Holocaust survivors in Israel, 6.2% managed to make it here before the establishment of the state, despite the British Mandate's immigration policy against it (up until May 13, 1948). 30.5% made it to Israel during its very first years (May 14, 1948 until 1951), another 29.8% arrived in the following decades (1952-1989), and 33.5% made Aliyah once the Soviet Union collapsed, and Jewish immigration to the west (which included Israel) was no longer prohibited by the Soviet regimes (1990 on).

The second biggest community of survivors in the world is in the US, the third biggest (but second biggest relative to the size of the population) is in Australia. I heard from many Holocaust survivors who chose to immigrate there that they wanted to get "as physically far away from Europe as possible."

For a few years now, there's been this project in Israel, called Maalim Zikaron, מעלים זיכרון (uploading memory. Here's the project's site in Hebrew. In English it's called Sharing Memories, and here's the English version of the site) where Israeli celebs are asked to meet up with a Holocaust survivor (it's done in Hebrew), and share the survivor's story and the meeting on their social media on Erev Yom Ha'Shoah (which is today). Each year, there's also one non-Israeli Jewish celeb asked to participate (in English. This time around it's Michael Rapaport, he's meeting Aliza, an 81 years old survivor from the Netherlands, who was hidden along with 9 other Jewish babies for two years. He uploaded a preview of his meeting with her here, where he asked her what it means to her to be a Jew, and from what I understand, he will upload more today to the same IG account). This year, there will be an emphasis on Holocaust survivors who also survived Oct 7 (with 6 of the 20 participating survivors having survived Hamas as well). Here's a small bit from an interview with one such survivor, 90 years old Daniel Luz from kibbutz Be'eri:

(for all of my updates and ask replies regarding Israel, click here)

[sayruq]

NAHLA AL-ARIAN HAS been living a nightmare for the past seven months, watching from afar as Israel carries out its scorched-earth war against her ancestral homeland in the Gaza Strip. Like many Palestinian Americans, the 63-year-old retired fourth-grade teacher from Tampa Bay, Florida, has endured seven months of a steady trickle of WhatsApp messages about the deaths of her relatives. “You see, my father’s family is originally from Gaza, so they are a big family. And they are not only in Gaza City, but also in Deir al Balah and Khan Younis, other parts,” Al-Arian told me. Recently, the trickle of horrors became a flood: “It started with like 27, and then we lost count until I received this message from my relative who said at least 200 had died.” The catastrophe was the backdrop for Al-Arian’s visit last week to Columbia University in New York City. Al-Arian has five children, four of whom are journalists or filmmakers. On April 25, two of her daughters, Laila and Lama, both award-winning TV journalists, visited the encampment established by Columbia students to oppose the war in Gaza. Laila, an executive producer at Al Jazeera English with Emmys and a George Polk Award to her name, is a graduate of Columbia’s journalism school. Lama was the recipient of the prestigious 2021 Alfred I. duPont–Columbia Award for her reporting for Vice News on the 2020 explosion at the port of Beirut. The two sisters traveled to Columbia as journalists to see the campus, and Nahla joined them. “Of course, I tagged along. You know, why would I sit at the hotel by myself? And I wanted to really see those kids. I felt so down,” she said. “I was crying every day for Gaza, for the children being killed, for the women, the destruction of my father’s city, so I wanted to feel better, you know, to see those kids. I heard a lot about them, how smart they are, how organized, you know? So I said, let’s go along with you. So I went.” Nahla Al-Arian was on the campus for less than an hour. She sat and listened to part of a teach-in, and shared some hummus with her daughters and some students. Then she left, feeling a glimmer of hope that people — at least these students — actually cared about the suffering and deaths being inflicted on her family in Gaza. “I didn’t teach them anything. They are the ones who taught me. They are the ones who gave me hope,” she recalled. “I felt much better when I went there because I felt those kids are really very well informed, very well educated. They are the conscience of America. They care about the Palestinian people who they never saw or got to meet.” Her husband posted a picture of Nahla, sitting on the lawn at the tent city erected by the student protesters, on his Twitter feed. “My wife Nahla in solidarity with the brave and very determined Columbia University students,” he wrote. Nahla left New York, inspired by her visit to Columbia, and returned to Virginia to spend time with her grandchildren. A few days later, that one tweet by her husband would thrust Nahla Al-Arian into the center of a spurious narrative promoted by the mayor of New York City and major media outlets. She became the exemplar of the dangerous “outside agitator” who was training the students at Columbia. It was Nahla’s presence, according to Mayor Eric Adams, that was the “tipping point” in his decision to authorize the military-style raids on the campus.

On February 20, 2003, Nahla’s husband, Sami Al-Arian, a professor at the University of South Florida, was arrested and indicted on 53 counts of supporting the armed resistance group Palestinian Islamic Jihad. The PIJ had been designated by the U.S. government as a terrorist organization, and the charges against Al-Arian could have put him in prison for multiple life sentences, plus 225 years. It was a centerpiece case of the George W. Bush administration’s domestic “war on terror.” When John Ashcroft, Bush’s notorious attorney general, announced the indictment, he described the Florida-based scholar as “the North American leader of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, Sami Al-Arian.” Among the charges against him was conspiracy to kill or maim persons abroad, specifically in Israel, yet the prosecutors openly admitted Al-Arian had no connection to any violence. He was a well-known and deeply respected figure in the Tampa community, where he and Nahla raised their family. He was also, like many fellow Palestinians, a tenacious critic of U.S. support for Israel and of the burgeoning “global war on terror.” His arrest came just days before the U.S. invaded Iraq, a war Al-Arian was publicly opposed to. The Al-Arian case was, at its core, a political attack waged by Bush’s Justice Department as part of a wider assault on the rights of Muslims in the U.S. The government launched a campaign, echoed in media outlets, to portray Al-Arian as a terror leader at a time when the Bush administration was ratcheting up its so-called global war on terror abroad, and when Muslims in the U.S. were being subjected to harassment, surveillance, and abuse. The legal case against Al-Arian was flimsy, and prosecutors largely sought to portray his protected First Amendment speech and charitable activities as terrorism. The trial against Al-Arian, a legal permanent resident in the U.S., did not go well for federal prosecutors. In December 2005, following a six-month trial, a jury acquitted him on eight of the most serious counts and deadlocked 10-2 in favor of acquittal on the other nine. The judge made clear he was not pleased with this outcome, and the prosecutors were intent on relitigating the case. Al-Arian had spent two years in jail already without any conviction and was staring down the prospect of years more. In the face of this reality and the toll the trial against him had taken on his family, Al-Arian agreed to take a plea deal. In 2006, he pleaded guilty to one count of providing nonviolent support to people the government alleged were affiliated with the PIJ. As part of the deal, Al-Arian would serve a short sentence and, with his residency revoked, get an expedited deportation. At no point during the government’s trial against Al-Arian did the prosecution provide evidence he was connected to any acts of violence. For the next eight years following his release from prison in 2008, Al-Arian was kept under house arrest and effectively subjected to prosecutorial harassment as the government sought to place him in what his lawyers characterized as a judicial trap by compelling him to testify in a separate case. His defense lawyers alleged the federal prosecutor in the case, who had a penchant for pursuing high-profile, political cases, held an anti-Palestinian bias. Amnesty International raised concerns that Al-Arian had been abused in prison and he faced the prospect of yet another lengthy, costly court battle. The saga would stretch on for several more years before prosecutors ended the case and Al-Arian was deported from the United States.

“This case remains one of the most troubling chapters in this nation’s crackdown after 9-11,” Al-Arian’s lawyer, Jonathan Turley, wrote in 2014 when the case was officially dropped. “Despite the jury verdict and the agreement reached to allow Dr. Al-Arian to leave the country, the Justice Department continued to fight for his incarceration and for a trial in this case. It will remain one of the most disturbing cases of my career in terms of the actions taken by our government.” That federal prosecutors approved Al-Arian’s plea deal gave a clear indication that the U.S. government knew Al-Arian was not an actual terrorist, terrorist facilitator, or any kind of threat; the Bush administration, after all, was not in the habit of letting suspected terrorists walk. Al-Arian and his family have always maintained his innocence and say that he was being targeted for his political beliefs and activism on behalf of Palestinians. He resisted the deal, Nahla Al-Arian said. “He didn’t even want to accept it. He wanted to move on with another trial,” Nahla said. “But because of our pressure on him, let’s just get done with it [because] in the end, we’re going leave anyway. So that’s why.” Sami and Nahla Al-Arian now live in Turkey. Sami is not allowed to visit his children and grandchildren stateside, but Nahla visits often.

[octuscle]

With the help of Allah

Bosse had been on the road for three days. On the road on a trip around the world as a gift for his A-levels. In fact, he hadn't been given very much money. But his parents had generously allowed him to start his studies in a year's time. And until then, with a little help from his parents, he was allowed to do whatever he wanted. The original plan had been to fly to Istanbul and make his way from there to Cairo by bus, train or hitchhiking. The war in Israel had thwarted his plans and so he had flown directly to Cairo. And after a day at the pyramids, he was red as a sheet and he was sick of everything. To give his skin a rest, he spent a day at the big bazaar today. At least it was shady there. Even if it was unbearably hot. But the posts of the last few days had been very successful; initially only family, friends and maybe a few teachers had followed him, but the number of his followers was actually growing by a few dozen every day. Measured against the initial number of perhaps 200 followers, that was a huge success. And this success was to be further boosted today with a few reels from the Bazaar.

The Bazaar was overwhelming. Confusing, full of people and smells. A babble of voices in which only a few snatches of words recognizable as English could be heard. Bosse loved the bazaar. But he hated the rubbing of his rucksack on his burnt shoulders. Suddenly he heard something. Rather unconsciously. Something irked him… It was… Swedish! Someone was speaking Swedish! "Unge herrn! Kom hit, snälla!" Bosse looked around. There was no one far and wide who was blonde and over six feet tall. He was in a crowd of short, black-haired people. And yet he heard it very clearly: "Unge herrn! Kom hit, snälla!" It was quiet… Much quieter than the Arab yelling of the other traders… But it came from one direction. Clearly… Bosse wasn't sure whether he wasn't beginning to hallucinate amidst the vapors of tens of thousands of people and the scent of spices from 1,001 nights. But the voice became louder and clearer "Unge herrn! Kom hit, snälla!" And then he was standing in front of the stall of a merchant who was one of the hairiest men Bosse had ever seen. Not many merchants showed their shoulders here in the Grand Bazaar. And to Bosse's taste, this man had better not have done so either… But now he stood before him with his hairy chest, hairy shoulders, hairy arms and huge, impressive beard. "Young sir, it's good that you're here. May I grant you relief from your pain?" Bosse looked at him as if bewitched. The man, who looked as Arabic as one could look, spoke to him in Swedish as if he had studied in Lund.

"Young sir, you are not used to the sun. The sun is the Arab's friend. But the enemy of the men from the north. Buy one of my amulets, young sir! And your pain will be alleviated." The merchant took an amulet from a stand and placed it on Boss's shoulder. The feeling was wonderful. Coolness flowed through his skin. The pain of the backpack straps at least on one side of his battered body. "Young master, only 40 pounds. Not even ten crowns yet! And you will sleep the sleep of the righteous tonight. No pain. Young master, try it. And don't pay until tomorrow when it's worked. No risk, young sir!" Bosse didn't even think about paying tomorrow. Obviously this amulet was at least not harmful. He took a 50-pound note and gave it to the merchant. "Young sir. I'll gladly take the money. But allow me: this is the great bazaar of Cairo. You must haggle. This amulet would never have been worth more than 10 pounds." Laughing, he gave Bosse 30 pounds in change. Bosse hung the amulet around his neck, put the 30 pounds in his wallet and turned around to thank him. He almost collided with a giant of a man. He was in the coppersmith's alley. There was no one selling amulets for miles around. Bosse mumbled a "Maghfira" and set off in confusion. He walked deeper and deeper into the bazaar. No souvenirs or sweets interested him. He needed new shoes. Something more practical than his sandals. And if he wanted to visit the mosque later, he should get himself a prayer cap. The amulet on his chest felt great. And his skin changed from a glowing red to a rich olive color. He moved as confidently as a cat in the corridors of the labyrinth. This felt so familiar. He greeted a familiar face again and again. Every store he stopped in gave him a cup of tea. Rumors and gossip were exchanged. Besse overheard a lot on his way through the bazaar. And he knew that information had to be bought with other information. By the end of the day, Bessem was exhausted. The pedometer on his cell phone showed that he had walked almost 15 kilometers. But it had been worth it. He had done everything he had planned for his day off. He had fed his TikTok channel with all kinds of news. And all he had to do was survive tomorrow, Thursday, and then it was the weekend.

Essam's day started early. His father was one of the biggest traders of copper in the big bazaar. And even though he was the crown prince, Essam was actually nothing more than an errand boy and porter. But Essam loves the job. He loved the bazaar. You met people all the time. Acquaintances and friends. But also strangers who gratefully let themselves be led out of the maze for a few pounds. Essam was well known in the relevant channels. Those who found him and let him "rescue" them were sometimes allowed to return the favor in kind. Essam was still a boy. But his cock was that of a stallion!

Pics by @ki-kink

[twst-charity]

I'm not altogether knowledgeable on how to bea mod but I want to help in some way. Is there anything I can do?

Hello! First off, thank you so much for your interest and for reaching out to us! Both our mod and contributor applications are currently closed, but there are still other ways you can help, both with this charity and with the situation in general!

The first is by submitting fanart and fic requests (once those forms are open) here with us (@twst-charity) by sending a screenshot/receipt of a donation made to one of three charities (Palestine Children’s Relief Fund, Medical Aid for Palestine, or Anera).

A very quick, easy, and free way to help is also by visiting this site and clicking the big, red, help button. If you’ve ever wanted to hit a big red button, now is the time to do so. This generates a donation to UNRWA to help Palestine.

Unfortunately, as many have heard by now, even these charities have been struggling to deliver resources to the people of Palestine due to blockades and frozen accounts, etc. Anera seems to continue to be successful in still getting resources where they are most needed, but the situation is constantly changing. We will be continuing to help raise donations in hopes that, as soon as there is an opportunity to do so, those charities will have the means and funds to make a difference.

However! There are still other ways to help Palestine and show your support. The first – and most important - is spreading awareness. Learn what is going on now and has been for the past 75 years. Be aware of propaganda and misinformation, whether purposeful or accidental. Archive tweets and posts and videos so that they cannot be scrubbed from the internet by those hoping to erase evidence of the genocide in Gaza. The importance of spreading the truth cannot be underestimated, especially with Netanyahu and the IOF increasing propaganda. Popular tags to do this include: #CeaseFireInGaza #CeasefireNOW and #FreePalestine!

Signing petitions and contacting representatives is also a good way to show your stance. Unfortunately, this does have some risk, due to organizations like c4n4ry mlssl@n (censored for safety) doxxing people who support Palestine.

Boycotting is another method that has been showing signs of success! The boycotting effort is being directed by the Palestinian BDS National Committee (BNC), which is the Palestinian leaderships of the global Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) Movement. Frankly, far too many brands and celebrities have shown support for Palestine for the average person to avoid all of them. So, a certain few have been picked to have the most impact.

Boycott: Starbucks, McDonalds, Disney+ (which means no TWST microtransactions, y’all!), Domino’s Pizza, Papa John’s, Pizza Hut, Burger King, AXA, Puma, Carrefour, hp, Siemens, Ahava, sodastream, and Israeli businesses. (Note from Mod Ryuu: This does NOT mean a general boycott on all Jewish businesses! Don’t be that person. You’re not helping.)

If you want to proudly show your support of Palestine IRL – and are safe to do so – a popular method is by wearing a Kufiya, the iconic scarf of Palestine. You can order an authentic Kufiya from Hirbawi at kufiya.org or from Kufiyas Australia at kufiyas.org.au If you’re not in a position where that’s possible, there are two other popular methods. The first is simply by wearing the colors of Palestine: Red, Green, White, and Black. The second ties into those colors and the history of colonialism in Palestine, where once it was illegal to fly the Palestine flag. Instead, people used the watermelon as a symbol to represent the flag. If you need a subtle means of showing support, the watermelon is the way to go.

Resources on the history of Palestine:

Netflix films: Born in Gaza (2014) dir. Hernan Zin, Farha (2021) dir. Darin J. Sallam, A World Not Ours (2012) dir. Mahdi Fleifel

YouTube films (FREE!): Tantura, Killing Gaza, Roadmap to Apartheid, Gaza Fights for Freedom, Born in Gaza, & Killing of Shireen Abu Akleh

Other films: The Present (2020) dir. Farah Nabulsi, Tale of Three Jewels (1995) dir. Michel Khleifi, Chronicle of a Disappearance (1996) dir. Elia Suleiman, Omar (2013) dir. Hany Abu-Assad, The Time That Remains (2009) dir. Elia Suleiman, Ambulance/Gaza (2016) dir. Mohamed Jabaly, Five Broken Cameras (2011) dir. Emad Bumat, 200 Meters (2020), Salt of This Sea (2008) dir. Annemarie Jacir.

Twitter link with these and more for those who still use the bird app:

Other threads (largely from the bird app) with information on how to help and what is happening:

THINGS NOT TO DO:

-Break the boycott, including doing things like ordering a bunch of food and then ditching without paying. You are only making life harder for the minimum wage employees doing their best, not the billionaires behind them.

-Do not spam the tags with posts not related to Palestine, etc. Keep your fandoms in their fandom spaces and so on. Unless, of course, you are doing a charity drive or something similar through your fandom.

-Be antisemitic. DO NOT harass or accuse Jewish people of being responsible for this genocide. Jewish people across the world have been protesting in defense of the Palestinian people even before this latest war began. More than 2/3 of people in Israel disagree with Netanyahu and the IOF based on recent polling.

[imfeelingbad]

(As a ukrainian) I lost all hope in humanity forever ago and I'm pretty sure I won't change someone's opinion, but I just want to tell the truth that i cry about every time.

I didn't see my home for 2 years. When I was there all I heard was explosions, bombs and warplanes. I saw ruined houses. I saw my half-destroyed school near which a projectile fell. I saw fire, smoke, a lot of it. I was in there. I heard all this. I heard. I saw. with my own eyes and ears. And what did you see and heard in the west, saying "This is all just Ukrainian propaganda"?

I was in the metro and saw hundreds of my fellow citizens, that a few months ago were casually going in this metro to their jobs, schools, universities etc. Some were sitting on the floor, some on old crusty carpets, with no fresh air, no normal ability just to go pee, not even talking about washing. But they were there just to be safe. Just to not die. They didn't care about hygiene, warm food and bath, delicious drink in their favorite café, all they did care about was just surviving.

Then I heard about Bucha massacre (read about this, if you think "russian soldiers are just poor people who don't want war and against Putin!!"). I heard hundreds women, children, men being raped, killed, tortured and firstly I was shocked. Then I heard about Irpin, Mariupol', Izium, Bahmut, now Avdiivka and many other ukrainian cities, that were completely destroyed by russians. But the difference is now I'm not shocked or surprised. Because now I understand this is Russian world, Russian culture, whole Russia in general.

But no one cares. No one cares about genocide, if the victim is big country in the center of Europe (even though every country has many people of color, and the biggest country in the world terrorizes it).

I saw a girl in the tiktok that was telling about the film "20 days in Mariupol". I looked in the comments and started crying. Why am I, my family, my friends, all ukrainians supposed to suffer while some westerns and russians are just laughing and saying "slava russia"?

Many people were talking about Gaza and I agree, there is total hell in Gaza and I feel very sorry for Palestinian people. I know how it is. But what gives YOU, a person that is sitting in the safe place with all basical human needs and think a war is just some trend, the right to compare the DEATHS of people that DIED from GENOCIDE and say that one GENOCIDE is less bad than another.

I'm not saying that we are suffering more than Palestinians, I'm saying that it's just so cruel to normalize deaths of people.. any people. That DON'T HURT anybody. That just want to live in a free country.

If I say, boycott Israel, all people from Israel are terrorists, people will agree with me. But when I say Russia is the terrorist, people will say "No, you're just xenophobic!"... And the genocide of my people is NOT xenophobic?? And the hundreds of years of destruction of Ukrainian culture is not xenophobic??

"What about Gaza?"

Gaza needs help. Ukraine needs help. Congo needs help. Syria needs help. No one should suffer. THAT'S my point.

Did you hear something about Holodomor in Ukraine? About MILLIONS of Ukrainians that died because soviet government were taking LITERALLY EVERY FUCKING BREAD CRUMB?? around 3.9 million ukrainians died. And this is only according to official data. These are only people whose identities have been established. It does not take into account people who were missing, or who were just horribly maimed.

If you still think I'm an ukrainian propagandist and not some fucking random teen like you who's just sharing my thoughts, read about Holodomor in Kazakhstan, first Russian-Chechen war, SECOND Russian-Chechen war, Russian-Georgian war, Russia’s invasion of Syria, Illegal occupation of Crimea and Donbas or just anything that involves Russia and war crimes.

If you're still saying this is all propaganda, Photoshop, I'm not surprised. Of course, everything around is propaganda. But not your beautiful truthful swamp.

Sometimes I just wish I was in yours shoes. Not caring about anything.

I don't care what russia supporting bots will say, I don't care people will not believe me, I just want to feel alive again.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_war_crimes

[workersolidarity]

🇮🇱🇺🇲 🚨

BIG FAT CRYING ISRAELI BABY BEGS UNCLE SAM FOR MORE BOMBS, LESS RESTRICTIONS

In bizarre series of events on Thursday, when the Israeli entity's psychotic Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, accused the Neocon administration of Genocide Joe Biden of imposing unfair restrictions, bottlenecking munitions deliveries, and slow rolling arms sales for the Zionist occupation army.

The accusations seem to have been made out of a desire for speeding up the genocide in the Gaza Strip, because murdering nearly 40'000 Palestinians in 9 months doesn't seem to be resulting in the rapid ethnic cleansing of Gaza the Zionist Prime Minister was hoping for.

Netanyahu began his toddler fit with false praise for the Genocide Joe administration, telling reporters in English that “When Secretary Blinken was recently here in Israel, we had a candid conversation. I said I deeply appreciated the support the US has given Israel from the beginning of the war."

Almost immediately, Netanyahu's praise became a backhanded complement when he added, “But I also said something else, I said it’s inconceivable that in the past few months, the administration has been withholding weapons and ammunitions to Israel..."

"Israel," he said again in faux disbelief, "America’s closest ally, fighting for its life, fighting against Iran and our other common enemies.”

"Secretary Blinken assured me that the administration is working day and night to remove these bottlenecks,” the crying man-baby-in-chief continued, adding that “I certainly hope that’s the case. It should be the case.”

But Netanyahu didn't stop there, the Psychopathic-man-baby-in-Chief reportedly accused the Genocide Joe administration of playing into the hands of Iran and its "proxies in the region", including Hamas and Hezbollah, by slowing munitions deliveries.

Asked about the man-baby's breakdown, US Secretary of Murder at the State Department, Antony Blinken, suggested the Zionist occupation's leader was exaggerating, and insisted only a single delivery has been held up.

The top war-mongering diplomat in the State Department went on, pointing to the one shipment the self-propelled grandpa mentioned in a press conference in Washington over a month ago.

"We are continuing to review one shipment that President [Genocide Joe] Biden has talked about with regard to 2000-pound bombs because of our concerns about their use in a densely populated area like Rafah. That remains under review,” Blinken said of the shipment.

"But everything else is moving as it normally would move… with the perspective of making sure that Israel has what it needs to defend itself against this multiplicity of challenges [it faces],” the Chief State Department war profiteer added.

When pressed about the issue in a later press conference, the blood-soaked-White-House spokeswoman and terrible-at-her-job-of-being-an-expert-liar, Karine Jean-Pierre, added that "We genuinely do not know what he’s talking about. We just don’t."

Clearly uncomfortable and aware that many of Genocide Joe's voters reject the Zionist genocide in Gaza, but equally conscious of the psychopathic and maniacal flippancy of her counterparts in the Israeli entity, Karine Jean-Pierre added that "There was one particular shipment of munitions that was paused, and you’ve heard us talk about that many times."

"We continue to have constructive conversations with the Israelis for the release of that particular shipment and don’t have any updates on that. There are no other pauses or holds in place… Everything else is moving in due process."

But it's clear from the behavior and words of the crying Israeli man-baby, Zionist Murderer-in-Chief Netanyahu, that his concern lies with wrapping up the genocide as quickly as possible, noting in his earlier statement that increasing the flow of American weapons would "help him finish the war more rapidly."

In his typically over-aggrandizing style, like a 13-year-old girl in a middle school Drama class, the man-baby said “During World War II, [UK leader Winston] Churchill (another historical psychopath) told the United States, ‘Give us the tools, we’ll do the job,'" going to add, "and I say, give us the tools and we’ll finish the job a lot faster.”

According to unsourced reporting in the Hebrew media earlier on Thursday, the Top war-mongerer Antony Blinken promised the man-baby Netanyahu that he would remove any and all restrictions on US weapons transfers to the Zionist entity in the coming days. Information that was likely leaked by the man-baby or his administration themselves.

Despite the crocodile tears, it's become clear Genocide Joe and his administration are not serious about preventing the use of American weapons to kill tens of thousands of Palestinian civilians, including thousands of women and children, and will continue funding and arming the destruction of innocents despite the ever escalating concerns from International institutions like the ICJ that were built by the United States itself, along with its closest allies.

In just the latest example of the Genocide Joe administration's ever escalating foreign policy, The Times of Israel, citing the Washington Post, says the Biden administration pressured two lawmakers with a hint of a conscience, Rep. Gregory Meeks and Sen. Ben Cardin, who were holding up a single delivery of 50 F15 fighter jets for several months, into accepting the arms transfer.

Times of Israel:

"Rep. Gregory Meeks and Sen. Ben Cardin have signed off on the deal under heavy pressure from the Biden administration after the two lawmakers had for months held up the sale, the [Washington] Post reported."

The pressuring of lawmakers, the odd relationships leading to bizarre comments from their Israeli counterparts, and the holding up of a single symbolic arms delivery all come together to expose the Biden administration's greatest contradiction: its dedication to Neoconservative foreign policy and US Imperialist domination, while at the same time offering up the occasional virtue-signaling public comments to its base of more peace-prefering voters who, at the very least, don't want to watch a live-streamed genocide occur right before their eyes, funded by their tax dollars.

These contradictions continue to play themselves out before the eyes of the entire world as crying babies and manipulative political figures continue to take advantage of this contradiction, seeing it for the weakness it is and using it, and other weaknesses, to manipulate the Genocide Joe administration into endlessly backing the maniacal and psychopathic Israeli occupation as it forever escalates with its adversaries, hoping the drag the United States into another two decades of war in West Asia.

#source1

#source2

@WorkerSolidarityNews

[apollos-olives]

re: your mutual, they’re right and I 100% agree with them as another anti-Zionist Jew, and I’m actually really really glad they brought it up. I can attest to there being some weird complexes that come with Zionist Judaism. The terf comparison is very astute. It reminded me of a book I read recently by another anti-Zionist Jew. The author took Hillel’s famous saying “if I am not for myself, then who will be for me? if I am only for myself, what am I? if not now, then when?” and did this wonderful interpretation of the first bit. If I am not for myself, then Zionists will claim to be for me. Being an anti-Zionist Jew necessitates speaking up, because otherwise Zionists are going to try to “represent” you. Like your mutual said, they claim to have our best interests in mind just because we’re Jewish. That’s why “not in our name” is a big thing in Jewish pro-Palestine circles, as well as protesting the ADL and AIPAC (two groups that really want to speak for us).

I also agree with the oppression thing. There is a complex about that in Zionist Judaism and certainly Judaism as a whole. It is one of the hardest things to talk about, because there is no way to not sound like a terrible person who is invalidating everyone’s trauma. But I think a lot of Jews, myself included up until a few years ago, never really treated that trauma the way we should have. Again there’s no nice way to say this but it often feels like we’re not even trying to heal or emotionally process any of it. And I think there are a lot of people who exploit the existence of our trauma and past/current antisemitism to create excuses for Zionism.

I have also heard all of the fake-progressive talk, and I read an essay that mentioned it recently but I can’t remember what it was called! It was by Edward Said and there was a whole section about the co-opting of revolutionary language by Zionists to justify Israel’s existence as “decolonialism” or whatever.

Anyways I’ll stop yapping, I hope you and your mutual are both having a good day! and Ariha too!

i'm not jewish so i can't really speak on your community and your own perspective as an antizionist jew but this does really help me understand more about the struggle!! i never really thought of the different ways zionists claim to be standing for the safety of all jews and how that affects antizionist jews' own perspectives on their beliefs and culture. i can't say much but this is very interesting for me to read, so thank you for your input.

[determinate-negation]

hey i wanted to ask your thoughts on something -- i am a gentile and asked one of my jewish friends if she wanted to come with me to a palestine protest and she expressed that she was supportive of palestine but didn't want to go bc she'd had bad experiences with antisemitism at previous palestine protests she'd been to. i said i was sorry she'd had such experiences and just left it at that but i'm not really sure what to make of it. i've always seen a decent number of visibly jewish people at palestine protests (eg people with "not in my name" placards/banners etc) and ofc quite a few of the people i attend palestine protests with are jewish themselves, and i've not noticed anything particularly antisemitic at the protests i've been to but i'm not jewish myself so maybe i wouldn't have noticed it. wondering what you think about it, what your experiences have been, and if there's anything you think gentile anti-zionists should be doing to make anti-zionist spaces more welcoming to jewish people (or if you don't agree with my friend's assessment of palestine protests?). the sentiment i've heard my jewish anti-zionist comrades express is that while all racism within the anti-zionist movement must be combatted, at the end of the day it's about palestinians not about jews and that incidents of antisemitism shouldn't mean jews don't get involved with anti-zionism -- but i don't think that'd really be appropriate for me to tell my friend given that i'm not jewish?

sorry just answering this now. in my experience i havent seen antisemitism at palestine protests, i also live in a very jewish city rn and have grown up in places with big jewish communities my whole life, with family members and family friends who were left wing and generally disinterested in israel and zionism. depending on where you are, people might be more isolated and nervous about antisemitism (could totally be for good reason, idk the details of where you are). a lot of jewish institutional communities basically ingrain it into peoples heads that theyre potentially unsafe and the holocaust could happen again at any time (and also thats why we need israel) and that creates a really visceral emotional connection

honestly i would ask your friend what experiences shes had before saying anything else. it might make it clearer what shes talking about. it totally could be legit idk. but also, i dont mean to say this in a flippant way, but theres a difference between real antisemitism (as in enmity to jews in general not just israeli settlers) and things that might make someone from a more zionist background uncomfortable being around, or might set off an emotional reaction they have to years of people telling them theyre about to get rounded up.

i feel like ive seen palestine organizers and speakers in the u.s. generally be very clear that they dont tolerate antisemitism, and the few instances of antisemitism i have heard of got called out and denounced, and people trying to provoke getting kicked out of protests instantly. it would be stupid to say that it doesnt exist, but it is in my observation minor to the u.s. palestine movement and generally not tolerated when it appears. i think this is a good sign and shows that palestine organizers are committed to combatting antisemitism and our continued presence as anti zionist jews will probably do more to help also. maybe your friend should try to join jewish voice for peace or if not now though

[optimisticlucio]

Growing up Jewish means that, among other things, you get used to a passive but everpresent dread that the rest of the world will eventually want to see you dead. Passover is about that one time the Egyptians enslaved all of the Jews, and despite trying to kill us, we survived. Purim is about that one time a Persian minister tried to have us all killed, but we survived. Hannukah is about the time the Greeks destroyed our holy sites and tried to have us all killed, but we survived. Tisha Be'Av. Holocaust Remembrance Day. Tzom Gedalia. It's gotten to a point where we commonly joke about how 90% of our holidays are just "they tried to kill us, they didn't, let's eat."

If it was merely historical, that'd be one thing, but this sort of fear is far from merely being a story passed down by your elders. My great grandma's entire family was burned alive in the Pogroms. My uncles were beat up for speaking up about antisemitism. My brother was bullied relentlessly in school for being circumcised. "Generational Trauma" is the correct term to define this, but I do think it's important to highlight how every generation re-experienced this trauma. Luckily, I haven't experienced this sort of violence yet beyond some dickheads online, but I don't believe this'll stay the case for much longer.

I want to be clear that despite this all, I'm not pessimistic about my future as a Jew or of the Jewish People as a whole; I'm a hopeless idealist, whether it's about individual life choices or about broader political change in general. We've made it this far, I don't think we'll be taken out that easily, and we can certainly build a better world without having to hide in a gilded cage of our own making. But holy shit, have I heard some concerning things from people recently.

Antisemitism is no longer the Cain's Mark it used to be. Saying this I now realize that it never was this sort of mark it was made out to be, but atleast while I was growing up, it felt like it was atleast socially unacceptable to be openly against the Jews. In the past few years I've had to come to terms with the fact that even if this was the case, it very much no longer is, and the past few months had this process exacerbate significantly.

You guys have heard about the Houthis, right? Paramilitary organization in Yemen, not the official government but controls enough of the country that they function as the government, been blocking trade through the Red Sea as of the time of posting? Those guys. Their logo has "A Curse Upon the Jews" written in big red letters. There is no other way to read that sentence, it is very explicit. Seeing people cheering for this group openly on social media made me somewhat uneasy, both for the... well, the antisemitism, and also that this group is infamous for its blatant human rights violations, including but not limited to bringing back chattel slavery. So, I brought this up to people.

I was expecting some sort of shock, right? Even if they fundamentally believe blocking the red sea is good, that they'd readjust their position on the group itself. "I think it's a cool thing to do, but wow what assholes." I shouldn't have to explain why antisemitic slave owners are bad guys, right?

Right??

The sheer amount of people who responded with one justification or another for why it's actually totally fine blew my fucking mind. "Oh, it's not actually slavery, they're treated very well." "Well, they don't really mean they hate the Jews." "It's just a different cultural form of labor!" "Well, when you have a country like Israel oppressing your people-"

Yeah I think I should probably address the elephant in the room real quick. Israel, and its fascist-adjacent government, has nothing of relevance when someone brings up the issue of worldwide antisemitism. Antisemitism has been thriving for years now. If you open a map Yemen is nowhere near Israel. There's certainly a conversation to have about Israel's abhorrent treatment of palestineans in the west bank and gaza, no doubt, but, frankly speaking, that's not the goddamn conversation we're having right now, and I feel the need to specify this because I've had multiple people derail such conversations consistently. If your first response to someone talking about antisemitism is to bring up Israel, for the love of god reexamine your biases.

Antisemitism has been growing, a lot, and we're scared. According to polls, 7% of the US thinks that the holocaust did not happen, with these numbers increasing to 20% if you sort the results to only the 18-29 age group and 9% of Americans think it's acceptable to hold neo-nazi views. Trust me, I wish these numbers were flukes, but I have seen these same numbers in multiple polls by numerous sources in the past 5 years.

7% of the US is about 23.2 million people.

There are only 16.2 million Jews in the entire world.

You, do not, have to justify antisemitism, I fucking promise you.

[tieflingkisser]

The Digital French Revolution

One influencer has, very much accidentally, kicked off something that would’ve been hard to imagine even a week ago. During the Met Gala, Hayley Bayley, who has 10 million followers on TikTok for reasons I neither know nor particularly wish to know, made a little video. In it she was wearing a dress and doing a look very clearly inspired by Marie Antoinette, and the words “let them eat cake” can be heard as the camera slowly zooms out. It was nothing complicated, just a simple and straightforward callback to the infamous phrase as she stood outside an event embodying the lifestyle of the rich and famous. Tickets to the Gala are $75,000, and this year it happened to take place at the exact moment Israel invaded Rafah. Now something fascinating and potentially incredible is happening over on TikTok, and it’s spilling out into other corners of the internet. Millions of people, and I say that with no exaggeration, are blocking the accounts of big celebrities, particularly those who haven’t spoken up about Palestine – which is the majority of these public figures. Thousands and thousands of short videos are being made every day about who to block, and people are celebrating seeing celebrities losing hundreds of thousands or even millions of followers. And the “block list” is growing daily, with people adding more influencers who have chosen to remain silent about the genocide in Gaza. The list is also growing to include the multitude of brands that celebrities own, from makeup to clothing to alcohol. Most important, a number of the TikToks being created discuss the why, why folks ought to cut off celebrities who refuse to use their large platforms to advocate for good. I find the explanatory videos to be the most powerful part of this, thus far, more powerful than the mass disengagement with celebrity social media accounts. The viral “block party” feel of people sharing the lists of celebrities they’ll no longer engage with, and no longer permit to profit off their attention, is the engine driving this little digital revolution, but the why is where the real transformative power is, to me. There are multiple reasons to block influencers and celebs, as countless people are explaining. The biggest reason is that we’ve seen more clearly than ever in recent months both how these people drive culture, and what culture they drive us towards. Specifically, they push us in the direction of a vulgar consumerism, always encouraging their followers to spend more, buy more, get tickets, get a new outfit, buy the latest product and so on and so forth. TikTok has made this especially obvious as it pushes the “TikTok Shop” more and more, with an increasing number of videos having links at the bottom of the page encouraging viewers to click and immediately purchase whatever item they’re seeing in a video. Naturally, this has encouraged influencers to hawk products in more of their videos, for which they make a commission off each purchase. And all of this is harmful in and of itself, but what has been made doubly clear since October is that it’s all done instead of using their platforms to advocate for good. The consumerism is bad enough, but seeing how it simultaneously functions as a distraction, in this case from a genocide, but more broadly from society’s ills, has made people furious. The juxtaposition of the Met Gala and the bombing of Rafah ripped this aggressive contradiction wide open.

[keep reading]

edit: blocklist reference for those interested

[matan4il]

Daily update post:

An Israeli law draft that would prohobit UNRWA's activity in Israel passed a very primal stage of legislation. It still has a long way until it will become law (it would still have to pass 3 readings, as well as the Knesset committees), but if before Oct 7 it probably would not stand a chance, after the mounting evidence of the symbiotic nature between Hamas and UNRWA, it has a better chance than ever.

Speaking of the UN being despicable, and in cahoots with antisemitic, genocidal terrorists, we now have Martin Griffiths, the UN Relief Chief, saying that he does not consider Hamas a terrorist organization. Just wondering, if an organization targeting civilians, raping women, maiming children, beheading babies, burning entiree families together, shooting and kidnapping elderly Holocaust survivors, isn't a terrorist organization, what in the world does Hamas need to do to be recognized as such!?

You might have heard that Israel is operating in the Nasser hospital in Gaza. There's a reason for that, which was addressed by the IDF spokesperson: Israel has intel, including from released hostages, that Hamas kept kidnapped Israelis (and possibly kidnapped bodies) in that hospital. I've actually found one testimony from a released hostage, Sharon Cunyo, talking about this to CNN's Anderson Cooper. The vid is here (page in Spanish, but the vid is in English).

I cannot stress enough how much our hearts hurt for our Jewish brothers and sisters around the world, suffering from this current rise in antisemitism. We've now heard that in the UK, a doctor who has described Jewish colleagues as having a "big nose," and who said that a London borough would be better off "Jew free" was found to be not racist, and could continue to practice medicine. This ties in with a new report that shows the number of antisemitic incidents in the UK is the highest it's been in 40 years, with 67% of these taking place after Oct 7, and maybe most importantly, the initial peak in antisemitic acts was a celebration of Hamas' massacre, rather than any sort of reaction to the war in Gaza.

Meanwhile, in the US congress, a bipartisan resolution passed, condemning Hamas' use of rape and sexual violence on Oct 7 (and since, when it comes to the hostages). Which is incredible and needed, even if it only has a symbolic meaning. Still, guess who couldn't stomach defending the human rights of Israelis, even when it comes to rape, even when it had no practical meaning? Rashida Tlaib, once more doing the US proud.

These are (left to right) Yair Cohen, Ziv Chen, and Netanel Alkobi.

On Oct 7, they were among the soldiers who got to kibbutz Nir Yitzchak, and saved the majority of its people from being slaughtered. They stayed to guard the kibbutz since (as the border fence has not yet been completely fixed), and only recently entered Gaza. The other day, they were killed in a building booby trapped by Hamas in Khan Younis. As heartbreaking is it was to hear their families talk about them, it was also painful to hear interviews with kibbutz members, who had lost so much, who have had loved ones in captivity for over 4 months, and who were just as devastated as the families, when they recognized the three as their savior heroes.

May their memories be a blessing.

(for all of my updates and ask replies regarding Israel, click here)

[sayruq]

AUG 4, 2014

Why Israel Lies

Its use of the kinds of big lies favored by totalitarian regimes is aimed at feeding two reactions: racism among its supporters and terror among its victims in Gaza.

All governments lie, as I.F. Stone pointed out, including Israel and Hamas. But Israel engages in the kinds of jaw-dropping lies that characterize despotic and totalitarian regimes. It does not deform the truth; it inverts it. It routinely paints a picture for the outside world that is diametrically opposed to reality. And all of us reporters who have covered the occupied territories have run into Israel’s Alice-in-Wonderland narratives, which we dutifully insert into our stories — required under the rules of American journalism — although we know they are untrue.

I saw small boys baited and killed by Israeli soldiers in the Gaza refugee camp of Khan Younis. The soldiers swore at the boys in Arabic over the loudspeakers of their armored jeep. The boys, about 10 years old, then threw stones at an Israeli vehicle and the soldiers opened fire, killing some, wounding others. I was present more than once as Israeli troops drew out and shot Palestinian children in this way. Such incidents, in the Israeli lexicon, become children caught in crossfire. I was in Gaza when F-16 attack jets dropped 1,000-pound iron fragmentation bombs on overcrowded hovels in Gaza City. I saw the corpses of the victims, including children. This became a surgical strike on a bomb-making factory. I have watched Israel demolish homes and entire apartment blocks to create wide buffer zones between the Palestinians and the Israeli troops that ring Gaza. I have interviewed the destitute and homeless families, some camped out in crude shelters erected in the rubble. The destruction becomes the demolition of the homes of terrorists. I have stood in the remains of schools — Israel struck two United Nations schools in the last six days, causing at least 10 fatalities at one in Rafah on Sunday and at least 19 at one in the Jebaliya refugee camp Wednesday — as well as medical clinics and mosques. I have heard Israel claim that errant rockets or mortar fire from the Palestinians caused these and other deaths, or that the attacked spots were being used as arms depots or launching sites. I, along with every other reporter I know who has worked in Gaza, have never seen any evidence that Hamas uses civilians as “human shields.”

There is a perverted logic to Israel’s repeated use of the Big Lie — Große Lüge — the lie favored by tyrants from Adolf Hitler and Josef Stalin to Saddam Hussein. The Big Lie feeds the two reactions Israel seeks to elicit — racism among its supporters and terror among its victims.

By painting a picture of an army that never attacks civilians, that indeed goes out of its way to protect them, the Big Lie says Israelis are civilized and humane, and their Palestinian opponents are inhuman monsters. The Big Lie serves the idea that the slaughter in Gaza is a clash of civilizations, a war between democracy, decency and honor on one side and Islamic barbarism on the other. And in the uncommon cases when news of atrocities penetrates to the wider public, Israel blames the destruction and casualties on Hamas.

George Orwell in his novel “Nineteen Eighty-Four” called this form of propaganda doublethink. Doublethink uses “logic against logic” and “repudiate[s] morality while laying claim to it.” The Big Lie does not allow for the nuances and contradictions that can plague conscience. It is a state-orchestrated response to the dilemma of cognitive dissonance. The Big Lie permits no gray zones. The world is black and white, good and evil, righteous and unrighteous. The Big Lie allows believers to take comfort — a comfort they are desperately seeking — in their own moral superiority at the very moment they have abrogated all morality.

The Big Lie, as the father of American public relations, Edward Bernays, wrote, is limited only by the propagandist’s capacity to fathom and harness the undercurrents of individual and mass psychology. And since most supporters of Israel do not have a desire to know the truth, a truth that would force them to examine their own racism and self-delusions about Zionist and Western moral superiority, like packs of famished dogs they lap up the lies fed to them by the Israeli government. The Big Lie always finds fertile soil in what Bernays called the “logic-proof compartment of dogmatic adherence.” All effective propaganda, Bernays wrote, targets and builds upon these irrational “psychological habits.”

This is the world Franz Kafka envisioned, a world where the irrational becomes rational. It is one where, as Gustave Le Bon noted in “The Crowd: A Study of the Public Mind,” those who supply the masses with the illusions they crave become their master, and “whoever attempts to destroy their illusions is always their victim.” This irrationality explains why the reaction of Israeli supporters to those who have the courage to speak the truth — Uri Avnery, Max Blumenthal, Noam Chomsky, Jonathan Cook, Norman Finkelstein, Amira Hass, Gideon Levy, Ilan Pappé, Henry Siegman and Philip Weiss — is so rabid. That so many of these voices are Jewish, and therefore have more credibility than non-Jews who are among Israel’s cheerleaders, only ratchets up the level of hate.But the Big Lie is also consciously designed to send a chilling message to Gaza’s Palestinians, who have lost large numbers of their dwellings, clinics, mosques, and power, water and sewage facilities, along with schools and hospitals, who have suffered some 1,650 deaths since this assault began — most of the victims women and children — and who have seen 400,000 people displaced from their homes. The Big Lie makes it clear to the Palestinians that Israel will continue to wage a campaign of state terror and will never admit its atrocities or its intentions. The vast disparity between what Israel says and what Israel does tells the Palestinians that there is no hope. Israel will do and say whatever it wants. International law, like the truth, will always be irrelevant. There will never, the Palestinians understand from the Big Lie, be an acknowledgement of reality by the Israeli leadership.

The Israel Defense Forces website is replete with this black propaganda. “Hamas exploits the IDF’s sensitivity towards protecting civilian structures, particularly holy sites, by hiding command centers, weapons caches and tunnel entrances in mosques,” the IDF site reads. “In Hamas’ world, hospitals are command centers, ambulances are transport vehicles, and medics are human shields,” the site insists.

“… [Israeli] officers are tasked with an enormous responsibility: to protect Palestinian civilians on the ground, no matter how difficult that may be,” the site assures its viewers. And the IDF site provides this quote from a drone operator identified as Lt. Or. “I have personally seen rockets fired at Israel from hospitals and schools, but we couldn’t strike back because of civilians nearby. In one instance, we acquired a target but we saw that there were children in the area. We waited around, and when they didn’t leave we were forced to abort a strike on an important target.”

Israel’s ambassador to the United States, Ron Dermer, in a Big Lie of his own, said last month at a conference of Christians United for Israel that the Israeli army should be given the “Nobel Peace Prize … a Nobel Peace Prize for fighting with unimaginable restraint.”

The Big Lie destroys any possibility of history and therefore any hope for a dialogue between antagonistic parties that can be grounded in truth and reality. While, as Hannah Arendt pointed out, the ancient and modern sophists sought to win an argument at the expense of the truth, those who wield the Big Lie “want a more lasting victory at the expense of reality.” The old sophists, she said, “destroyed the dignity of human thought.” Those who resort to the Big Lie “destroy the dignity of human action.” The result, Arendt warned, is that “history itself is destroyed, and its comprehensibility.” And when facts no longer matter, when there is no shared history grounded in the truth, when people foolishly believe their own lies, there can be no useful exchange of information. The Big Lie, used like a bludgeon by Israel, as perhaps it is designed to be, ultimately reduces all problems in the world to the brutish language of violence. And when oppressed people are addressed only through violence they will answer only through violence.

[tjmystic]

Look, we need to discuss something: regardless of who we vote for or how loud we get, the federal U.S. government is going to back Israel.

Before I say anything else, let me be clear that I am NOT saying to stop speaking out. Whatever our government does or doesn't do, we still have an individual responsibility to make Palestinian voices heard and support the victims of this genocide however we can. Sometimes, you push back not because you expect a wall to fall but because, at the end of the day, you know you'd be a little less human if you didn't. Palestinians deserve whatever hope and support we can give them.

But that doesn't mean the official U.S. stance is going to change. Not right now, not overnight, probably not even within the next year. Our federal government is going to back Israel because they're our puppet state for Islamophobia in the Middle East and a great way for us to pretend we care about Jewish people without actually helping any Jews. Neither the party in power nor the sitting president will change this. All of our presidents since 1947 have supported genocide in Palestine in one way or another, whether they were liberal or conservative.

This is not a good thing. There is no positive way to spin this. The U.S. is a colonialist genocidal state at its root, and neither party has made any steps to correct it.

A lot of people won't like me saying that because it removes the illusion of choice. "If we just elect X, then we can end the genocide," is not an accurate statement. No choice we make politically is going to make our country remove its boot from Palestine's throat.

But -- and this is the part that even more people are going to hate me for -- our only option is still to vote for Biden.

Again, let me be clear. I don't like Biden. I despise him. He's willfully committing genocide and has been this whole time. Point blank. End of. But that whole "illusion of choice" thing? Yeah, that also applies to American electoral habits. Other countries love to call us stupid for having a two party system and being so crippled by it. They're right -- it's an awful system and a proponent of our ruin. But the same countries who complain about it and say we should just dismantle it also seem to think we can do it overnight, and that just isn't possible. Everyone wants a revolution, everyone wants an uprising, but no one is willing to organize one. They want it to happen passively and jump in only if it doesn't inconvenience them. Or they want to pull big stunts like bombing a government building instead of doing the hard work of assigning people to stations, coordinating multifaceted attacks, gathering supplies. They don't want to get involved in the process of changing our laws or political landscape to put us in a position where we have more than 2 candidates to vote for.

And that's the truth. It's ugly, it's stupid, but we aren't mindless sheep for defaulting to the 2 party system. We base our choices on it because it's the only real "choice" we have -- back to that illusion. Voting for a third party candidate without any promise of a majority turnout is just going to split the Democratic vote in half, and that's how we get a lifetime of Trump as dictator. That is not an exaggeration. That is a genuine threat we are staring down right now.

Both parties suck. Both parties are committing genocide. But that doesn't make them equally evil. A conservative president would be announcing outright war on Palestine instead of pretending to give a shit about them while actively funding Israel. A conservative president would be sending all of our troops to Iraq and Iran and Yemen instead of murdering individuals or small groups in those countries. (Every single life is sacred. Biden's murders of Iraqi, Iranian, and Yemeni citizens is unforgivable and inexcusable. But it could also be so much worse. We could be doing to them what we're already doing to Palestine. We already have before.) A conservative president would be trying to remove us from the UN altogether and pass laws that would prevent individual citizens from supporting Palestine or even speaking out about it. A conservative president would be adding more fuel to our burgeoning civil war and stripping more and more rights from women, people of color, queer people, and immigrants.

Biden is not good. He isn't. Pretending otherwise is foolishly optimistic at best. But he's better than Trump or any other conservative at all for that matter. And he's also proven that he can be pushed further left when votes are on the line and people are loud enough about it. Even if he wasn't, though, he's still allowing us the right to vote. Trump won't.

[beardedmrbean]

God the amount of people on here I’ve, not just lost respect for, but become completely repulsed by in the last few days. People I share fandoms with who every so often would reblog those stupid “goblins are Jews so anybody who puts them in stories is antisemetic and should be shunned!!!” Which I usually just rolled my eyes and moved on. Those same damn people are on here justifying Jewish people getting slaughtered and kidnapped. And even if in their minds it’s truly just about “Israel vs Palestine”, not a fucking peep has been heard from any of them about the attacks now occurring to Jews around the world. “Punch Nazis! Listen to Jewish Voices! Be aware of antisemitism!” All goes out the window now I guess?

Gonna be setting everything to do with this situation to 'mature' and tagging "middle east mess" from here on in, this situation is far too much for lots of you and I get that I'm trying to balance things out best I can.

Go into your settings to the "content" filtering as well as "tag" filtering and punch in any terms you can think of to get most of this all off your dash.

Schrödinger's POC.

One thing I've come to realize in my observations over the years is the majority of the different activists, really loud ones at least, don't actually care about the causes they claim to care about, they don't actually want things to improve for people. Having perpetual victims while they themselves are not victims seems to let them look like they're trying to help and stand up for injustice and victimized people while still covertly looking down their noses at them.

Israel is a great example of that since they do a pretty good job mostly on their own surrounded by enemies on all sides, gotten a little less dangerous over the decades but they're still in the danger zone and generally still thriving.

That and they very rarely get involved in a difficult fight, much easier to virtue signal over a video game than it is when there's some fairly complex geopolitical forces at play. And hating Israel is the easier of the two routes to go in this one, you'll also be seeing the folks that say it's not Jews it's "Zionists" even if the overwhelming majority of Jewish people are Zionists.

Which hey, you're all entitled to your opinion but before you go and start bashing Israel on a hourly basis go ahead and look at all the other countries out there and see how you feel about them and decide if you honestly think you're judging them all by the same standard or if you're judging Israel (or any others) more harshly and then ask yourself why that is.

Amnesty went in to Ukraine at one point after several schools had been targeted by russia, amnesty pointed out all of the obvious signs that the ukrainian military had been using those schools as weapons cache's or staging grounds or any of a number of other military purposes and they declared that to be a big no no and properly laid the blame on the ukranian military and government. You made it a military target by putting troops there.

Oddly even though it's widely known that hamass does the same thing, somehow amnesty still goes after Israel who will "knock on the door" of places they're about to level that are legitimate military targets, if they're also civilian buildings. hamass using the roof of a building as a place for a communications array/radio tower they'll get a dummy bomb dropped in their lap and civilians have their 30 min notice to evacuate because it's going down in 30 min one way or the other, but somehow that's not good enough.

and Oh lord I was in the notes of a couple different post and people talking about the Jewish citizens of Israel not actually being the same people that are the indigenous population to that area, which dna tests have proven that wrong, but hey they're out there repeating talking points made up by goebels so remember that next time these people call someone else a nazi, granted they're stupid enough to call actual Jewish people nazis to their faces showing that they've really just turned that word into something that's on par with butthead at this point.

Circling back round, like I said most of these activists they don't want conditions to actually improve for anyone, because they won't be special little guys helping out the poor oppressed people, they'll just be ordinary.

Cancer researchers would be very happy if they got put out of a job, professional activists not so much.

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This is all beyond very tragic both for the people of Israel and the people of gaza who just want to live their lives free of fear and hate, it is interesting to see people doing 180's on their stances on things like rape and child murder/infanticide and such given who's doing it this time round, if I were Jewish I would be seriously reconsidering my position of I want everyone who wants to and can responsibly do so to own all the guns they like, but having one isn't for me.

I'd cut that last bit out, I'd be armed everywhere I go.

There's lots of issues on both sides of this conflict, but only one side went in to a music festival and murdered 260+ people and dragged off hostages to rape, torture, and maybe attempt to bargain with at some point if the mood strikes.

That's not something the good guys do.

Side note, I'm surprised I haven't seen a specific insult tossed out between members of the Jewish community who are on different sides of this issue, for the curious it's a german word and I'm not going to type it out.

Had someone throw that one at me once which confused me given my lack of being Jewish, loses all it's punch at that point.

[the-catboy-minyan]

hello! I saw your post about ‘hero’ narratives and beating up the ‘bad guy’ vs working for systemic change. I had a specific question about something you mentioned in it— this truly is in good faith, I have Israeli friends including one who is currently fighting in Gaza, and some Jewish family so I really do just want to understand this different perspective.

You said that Palestinians hadn’t experienced ethnic cleansing. I’ve heard people talk about Palestinians being forced out of their homes, having farmland and property confiscated without much (if any) compensation and not being granted Israeli citizenship, even though they were living on the land that became the state of Israel at the time it was created. If not ethnic cleansing, what was/is that? I believe Jewish people have a right to live peacefully in Israel— I’m more curious about why, from an Israeli perspective, civilian Palestinians did not also have that right, and what the reasoning/justification behind their eviction was? (Or if I’m missing something and ‘eviction’ might still not be the right word?)

I understand if you aren’t able to answer this, I know it’s a big & politically charged question that you might not have the time or capacity to respond to, but I wanted to ask because I genuinely want to try and understand a perspective different from the ones I usually hear. I appreciate you taking the time to read this and I hope you have a nice day!

hi there, I really appreciate you reaching out to hear new perspectives. I just want to give a disclaimer that I'm not an expert in the subject so I can't really explain it properly, because I don't know enough to properly pass the knowledge. but I can can try to elaborate on the point of not being granted an Israeli citizenship.

Palestininians live in the west bank and Gaza, which aren't under Israel's authority, they're not Israeli citizens since they don't live in Israel, they live in Palestine, which at present is self governing (the west bank under Fatah(?), Gaza under Hamas).

Arab Israelis are equal citizens in Israel under the law, and some of them are Palestinians. Palestinians who lived and chose to keep living in the land that became Israel were given an Israeli citizenship.

between 1948-1967, the west bank was under Jordan's rule (which is why it's called the "West Bank" while being east of Israel), and Gaza was under Egypt's. west bank Palestinians were given a Jordanian citizenship, while Gazans were not given an Egyptian one.

during the 6 day war in 1967, Israel seized these lands (among parts of egypt and syria iirc?). the prime minister Rabin worked with Yasser Arafat to sign the Oslo accords, in which the seized land was returned back to the owners and there would be dual recognitions between Israel and the PLO, but Jordan and Egypt refused to take back ownership of Palestine, and the ownership was passed to Palestinians.

as for the ethnic cleansing claim, well usually when a group is being ethnically cleansed, their population falls. Palestinian population in Palestine in 1948 was 1.4 million, and 5.4 million in 2023, that's about ×3.86 increase in 75 years. the global population in 1950 (couldn't find 48) was 2.5 billion, current global population is 8.1 billion, that's a ×3.24 increase in 75ish years. arab population in Israel in 1948 was ~150k/~780k total citizens, which is about 19%, today's percentage is 21%. so there were on large scale efforts to ethnically cleanse Arabs from Israeli territories between 1948-present day, and the Palestinian population rose close to the global average (and that's not including the amount of total Palestinians which is 14 million, only palestinians who live in Palestine).

so assuming the claims you heard are true (and I'm not casting doubt), those are examples of human rights violations, not ethnic cleansing. does it make it in any way okay or less bad? no, it just means the term "ethnic cleansing" doesn't apply here.

as always if anyone has something to add or I said something that needs correcting, feel free to reply or reblog. and don't take my word for granted, I'm just a random dude online, not an expert on politics and history.