#israel hamas conflict

[cimerran-714]

Liberals care about Palestine/Hamas because they are not white.

One side has to be the oppressor. And the other side has to be oppressed. There's no other way out of this.

According to liberals, white people are always the oppressors.

Palestine is comparatively less white than many Israeli citizens, and of course, that's enough for the liberal hivemind. A non-white country in war with another who has a lot of people who have fairer skin?

Of course Isreal is committing genocide! How can white people ever be attacked?

It's the same reason why they accuse Israel of "colonizing" Palestine, similar to the European colonization of America.

If Palestine citizens were the ones who're white instead, they would have cheerfully supported Israel.

These people are the lowest of the low.

[thecurrentevents]

university protests.

following the columbia university crackdown on pro-palestinian protestors, many other protests have erupted in college campuses across the us and worldwide.

police have arrested hundreds of students, but they aren’t giving up despite threats of expulsion and arrest. it’s unfair to kick them out and deprive them on education, food, and shelter for protesting peacefully.

these want the genocide to stop - is there anything wrong with that? again, these are peaceful protests. colleges, especially universities like columbia, had protests like this in the past (re: vietnam war protests, anti-racism and anti-apartheid protests), so how is this one any different?

pro-israel people like house speaker mike johnson, texas governor greg abbott, and israel’s prime minister benjamin netanyahu are calling these protests antisemitic.

while there have been chants of true antisemitism like death to jews and such hate speech (this has been occurring on both sides - pro-israel and pro-palestine marches; why didn’t the media call this out? or politicians?), the majority of the students just want peace.

there is nothing antisemitic about wanting the murdering of thousands of innocent civilians to stop. there is nothing antisemitic about wanting a manmade famine to stop. antisemitism has been used as an excuse to stamp down on anti-israel speech. it’s watering down the term.

[athingofvikings]

Okay, I'm going to go out on a limb here and make what is apparently a radical ethical statement.

If someone's response to hearing of the October 7th mass murder of Israelis was to celebrate or applaud or otherwise express joy, they're an antisemite. Period.

If someone's response to 10,000 dead Gazans was to celebrate or applaud or otherwise express joy, they're an Islamaphobe. Period.

In general, if you hear about thousands of people dying for being in the wrong place at the wrong time or being born to the 'wrong' group, and your reaction is "HUZZAH!", you are a horrible person.

[destielmemenews]

"Guterres called for an immediate ceasefire, saying the attack on Israel did not happen “in a vacuum” and followed “56 years of suffocating occupation” for the Palestinian people by Israel."

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[the-library-alcove]

One repeated refrain I keep seeing from the Pro-Palestinian crowd, from the most virulently Jew-hating to the most Jew-sympathetic, is pretty straightforward.

"Well, after 75 years of how the Palestinians have been treated, can you blame them for the 7/10 attack?"

And the response that I've been itching to give to that...

"So, you're saying that the Nakba was acceptable back in 1948? Because after 1000+ years of mistreatment by Muslim Arabs, including multiple massacres and ethnic cleansing in living memory, that means that the Jews were justified with the Nakba--indeed, they were restrained, because they could have easily done so much worse, and the Palestinians Arabs hadn't had any mistreatment yet. There was a clear side who had been the victims (the Jews) and a clear side who had been the victimizers for over a thousand years, as the Muslims been the ones doing the mistreatment to the Jews. If you're saying that 75 years of marginalization justifies mass rape and murder, then the Israelis in 1948 would have been justified in killing every single proto-Palestinian Arab by that same metric.

"No? That's different? How? How is it different? Explain to me how it's different without using the word 'colonizer', because a vast number of the Jews who lived there were native and had never been living elsewhere. Sure, they were just a portion of the Jewish population as a whole, but so are the Palestinian militants. Would someone whose family had been butchered in the 1929 Hebron Massacre not be justified in taking out their hate on other Arabs? Because that's the standard you're promoting now. How is it different?

"On what ethical grounds is it okay to say that the Palestinians deserve to get to rape and murder for 75 years of marginalization, and yet that the Jews simply displacing them but allowing them to continue living, sparing their lives after 1200+ years of brutal suppression... that act is somehow the most horrendous and monstrous act in the entire history of mankind, as some Pro-Palestinian activists have explicitly said?"

"Explain to me how 75 years of mistreatment justifies mass murder, but 1000+ years of legally recognized second-class brutal near-slavery doesn't justify displacement of your former oppressors."

[humusboii2thereturnoftheking]

Palestine is Ruining the Left

I've taken this from Reddit because I've found it an interesting read, I did not write this myself, a user named u/ u/TooLittleNuance did. Feel free to reply and engage in converation.

I'm an Israeli-American leftist who has been active in American and Israeli politics for a number of years now. I have always advocated for human rights, equity, and self-determination for Palestinians who are oppressed(to different extents) under Israel, a nation that commits itself to Jewish domination of institutions. I always voted and campaigned for progressive Democrats and I assisted with the Israeli Meretz party from abroad. This is why I think the current Palestinian-sympathetic movement is ruining the left:

Abandonment of Pragmatism - Just like the 2020 George Floyd protests("Defund the Police"), the Western left has completely embraced a suicidal strategy of idealistic radicalism. Many of those on the left insist the solution to the conflict is a one-state solution consisting of Palestine "from the River to the Sea". Unfortunately, they've appropriated the Palestinian mythology in their ambitions to magically destroy Israel and the ideology of Zionism by BDS somehow or supporting Palestinian "armed struggle". It doesn't take a lot of thought to see how both of those methods are incredibly ineffective and immoral to advocate for and implement. So, instead of a pragmatic approach, like empowering the Israeli left through donations and advocacy, supporting a reasonable solution(two-state or one-state under Israel), or calling for the ultimate humanitarian end to the war of a unilateral Hamas surrender, the Western left insists on a dream scenario that will never happen. This is the most egregious behavior of the left and it's their most common mistake(i.e. Vietnam). This is due to the fact that Palestinians, especially in Gaza, are suffering under disproportionate Israeli force with no Western movement to realistically end it. In fact, these Western leftists, due to these tactics, are assisting in empowering and legitimizing the far-right of Israel. They are the perfect strawman to turn people off to the left in Israel, which, in turn, results in a lengthened Palestinian suffering.

Maximalism - There's a tendency on the left to outcompete each other in radicalism. It's not catchy or sexy to say "The war tactics that Israel uses are disproportionate and don't consider enough of the humanitarian cost", it has to be "genocide" or "ethnic cleansing" in order to provoke an emotional reaction from uneducated Westerners. It's not "the security policy of Hafradah has resulted in reduced human rights of Palestinians compared to Israelis", it has to be "Apartheid"(with the only legal precedent being South Africa). These maximalist statements immeasurably hurt the movement for true progress on Palestinian human rights. It results in a boy-who-cried-wolf situation: If Israel decides to transfer the entire Gazan population to the Sinai, what is that called? A "genocide"? Due to the present labeling of the war, nobody will believe it. What if Israel permanently transfers or kills 100,000 Palestinian civilians? 200,000? 1 million? What will that be called? How can it get worse than "genocide"? This Maximalist rhetoric is not only inaccurate, but it's incredibly damaging to describe the proportionate extent of Palestinian suffering, which is vital to any movement that faithfully advocates for an upliftment of Palestinian life and identity.

Normalization of Bigotry - Explicit or latent Jew-Hatred is being increasingly embraced by radical sections of the Western left. Tropes such as "Zionist"(a euphemism for "Jew" for many) control of governments or blood libel. Wishing "Death to Zionists" or equating them with Nazis is, in most cases, latent Jew-Hatred. Regardless of your thoughts on the definition of Zionism(there is no definition, it is a meaningless term), it's clear that many believe that "Zionists" are just uppity Jews. Of course, this is genuinely believed by a small portion of the left. However, a substantial part of Western leftists has repeatedly failed to condemn this Jew-Hatred and to stop mirroring the language of these latent or explicit Jew-Haters. This is 1000x worse in the case of Israelis. For Western leftists, it's normal to call Israelis "colonizers", "demons", "rapists", and "child-murderers" on their social media without repercussion or introspective irony. As somebody belonging to the Israeli nationality, I have been desensitized to the insane amount of bigotry from those that I formerly respected. However, many Israelis or Jews aren't as depersonalized as I am, and they definitely take the bigotry to heart. What do you think results from that? Usually, a vote for Likud(Netanyahu's Party) or a donation to AIPAC. Thus, propagating a cycle of bigotry and continuing the suffering of Palestinians.

Propaganda - This war has sparked the largest disinformation campaigns in human history. Multiple state entities (Israel, U.S., Russia, Iran, Qatar) and numerous private entities are pumping out loads of propaganda in order to manipulate uneducated Westerners into supporting their interests. Since October 7th, known Russian disinformation propagator, Jackson Hinkle, has skyrocketed in followers due to his ability to mislead Western leftists on the war. I have seen an unfathomable amount of reposts from Al Jazeera and MiddleEastEye, known Qatari state propaganda and major propagates of misinformation. I have always appreciated the value of institutional skepticism that embodied many of the historical and academic leftist leaders. However, right now, those values are completely thrown out in favor of Russia or Iran's geopolitical advocacy of "everything the West does is bad". The previous three points of behavior are certainly emboldened by the paid disinformation and bots that propagate anti-Western sentiment to destabilize Western democracy. Meanwhile, the basic interests of Palestinian civilians are left unregarded while these state operatives kill their only lifeline.

Reactionary Resurgence - One of the main factors that attracted me to the left was its rejection of reactionary ideology(the establishment of traditional institutions from the past). For Israelis and Palestinians, reactionary rhetoric is normalized and encouraged in many cases. However, this reactionary ideology that has plagued those who share my nationality has spread to Western leftists in their advocacy for Palestine. Western leftists constantly appropriate the far-right and reactionary talking points that many radicalized Palestinians spout. An example would be the insistence on the exclusive indigeneity of Palestine from the River to the Sea, which abandons the progressive values of anti-nationalism and intersectionality. Another example would be the appropriation of Palestinian Martyrdom, in which many of them embraced the idea that human life can be inherently reduced to a political or national cause by their manner of death. This is a clear rejection of the values of individualism, secularism, and anti-nationalism.

Historical Negligence - Those who are even a little bit informed on the Israel-Palestinian Conflict understand that the conflict is too complex to be treated as a soccer match of Israelis vs. Palestinians. Many Israeli and Palestinian leaders set roadblocks to an equitable peace, while many others progressed the conflict to a more positive state. Even more than the historical complexity of this conflict, evaluating the moral complexity requires a graduate degree in a relevant field with hundreds of hours of research. I typically advise not to trust anybody's commentary of the conflict with any less credibility than the previous sentence. However, the Western left has instead decided to follow the historical and moral analysis of demagogues. There's constantly factually wrong or misleading historical information on many of these Palestinian-sympathetic accounts. An example is the map of a "disappearing Palestine" that millions have reposted, a blatantly misleading map meant to depict "Zionist colonization", meanwhile, neglecting the historical borders of the conflict. There are many other forms of historical negligence that they commonly employ that are extremely damaging for understanding the conflict.

In conclusion, Western leftists are keeping up with the Western traditions of white saviorism and interfering with this particular trendy foreign conflict. I could have written a few more grievances that I have of the Western left(including the embracement of far-right Islamist groups) but I wanted to keep the post relatively short. In several months, Western leftists will forget about the Gazans suffering under the disproportional force of the IDF. Nobody will self-criticize the ideas or tactics that they engaged in, meanwhile, the Israeli left-wing and reliable non-Hamas Palestinian advocacy organizations are left in the dust by an ineffective white-savior-esqe Western movement. Not only that but due to all of these factors making the left look like lunatics, Biden and the Democrats are being affected in the polling, which may result in Trump being elected, a terrible outcome for Palestinians.

[jewelleria]

I don’t usually talk about politics on here, if ever. But it’s been almost six months since the conflict in the Middle East flared up again, and I’m finally ready to start. Here are some of my thoughts.

I say ‘flared up’ because this has happened before and it’ll happen again. Because, even though what's currently going on is absolutely unprecedented, those of us who live in this part of the world are used to it. Let that sink in: we are used to this. And we shouldn’t have to be. 

But I use that term for another reason: I don't want to accidentally call it the wrong thing lest I come under fire for being a genocidal maniac or a terrorist or a propaganda machine, etc., etc.—so let’s just call it ‘the war’ or ‘the conflict.’ Because that’s what it is. Doesn’t matter which side you’re on, who you love, or who you hate. 

This post will, in all likelihood, sit in my drafts forever. If it does get posted, it certainly won’t be on my main, because I'm scared of being harassed (spoiler: she posted it on her main). I hate admitting that, but honestly? I’m fucking terrified. 

I also feel like in order for anything I say on here (i.e. the hellscape of the internet) to be taken seriously, I have to somehow prove that a) I’m “educated” enough to talk about the conflict, and b) that my opinion lines up with what has been deemed the correct one. So, tedious and unnecessary though it is, I will tell you about my experience, because I have a feeling most of the people reading this post are not nearly as close to what’s happening as I am.

How do I explain where I live without actually explaining where I live? How do I say “I live in the Red Zone of international conflicts” without saying what I actually think? How do I convey the fear that grips me when I try to decide between saying “I live in Palestine” and “I live in Israel”? I don't really know. But I do know that names are important. I also know that, due to the various clickbaity monikers ascribed to the conflict, it would probably just be easier to point to a map. 

I haven't always lived in the Middle East. I've lived in various places along America’s east coast, and traveled all over the world. But in short, I now live somewhere inside the crudely-drawn purple circle. 

If you know anything about these borders you probably blanched a bit in sympathy, or maybe condolence. But in truth, it’s a shockingly normal existence. I don't feel like I've lived through the shifting of international relations or a war or anything. I just kind of feel like I did when COVID hit, that dull sameness as I wondered if this would be the only world-altering event to shape my life, or if there would be more. 

I've been told that, in order for my brain to process all the horrific details of the past six months, there needs to be some element of cognitive dissonance—that falling into a sort of dissociative mindset is the only way to not go insane under the weight of it all. I think in some ways that’s true. I have been terrifyingly close to bus stop shootings when my commute wasn’t over; I have felt my apartment building shake with the reverberations of a missile strike; I have spent hours in underground shelters waiting for air raid sirens to stop. 

But. I have also gone grocery shopping, and skipped class, and stayed up too late watching TV, and fed the cats on the street corner, and cried over a boy, and got myself AirPods just because, and taken out the trash, and done laundry on a delicate cycle, and bought overpriced lattes one too many days a week. I have looked at pretty things and taken out my phone because, despite it all, I still think that life is too short not to freeze the small moments. 

So I'd say, all things considered, I live an incredibly privileged life—compared, of course, to those suffering in Gaza—one filled with sunsets and over-sweetened knafeh and every different color of sand. One that allows me to throw myself into a fandom-induced hyperfixation (or, alternatively, escape method) as I sit on the couch and crack open my laptop to write the next chapter of the fic I'm working on. 

But there are bits of not-normalness that wheedle their way through the cracks. I pretend these moments are avoidable, even if they’re not. 

They look like this: reading the news and seeing another idiotic, careless choice on Netanyahu’s part and groaning into my morning coffee. Watching Palestinian and Jewish children’s needless suffering posted on Instagram reels and feeling helpless. Opening my Tumblr DMs to find a message telling me to exterminate myself for reblogging a post that only seems like it’s about the war if you squint and tilt your head sideways. 

These moments look like all the tiny ways I am reminded that I'm living in a post-October seventh world, where hearing a car backfire makes me jump out of my skin and the sound of a suitcase on pavement makes me look up at the sky and search for the war planes. They look like the heavy grief that is, and also isn’t, mine. 

Here's the thing, though. I know you’re wondering when the ball will drop and my true opinion will be revealed. I know you’re waiting for me to reveal what demographic I'm a part of so that you, dear reader, can neatly slap a label on my head and sort me into some oversimplified category that lets you continue to think you understand this war. 

No one wants to sit and ruminate on the difficult questions, the ones that make you wonder if maybe you’ve been tinkered with by the propaganda machine, if you might need to go back on what you’ve said or change your mind. We all strive for our perception of complicated issues to be a comfortable one.

But I know that no matter what I do, there will always be assumptions. So, while I shudder to reveal this information online, I think that maybe my most significant contribution to this meta-discussion spanning every facet of the internet is this: 

I am a Jew. 

Or, alternatively, I am: Jewish, יהודית, يَهُودِيٌّ, etc. Point is, I come from Jews. And, like any given person, I am a product of generation after generation of love. 

I'm not going to take time to explain my heritage to you, or to prove that before all the expulsions and pogroms, there was an origin point. If you don’t believe that, perhaps it’s less of a factual problem and more of an ‘I don’t give weight to the beliefs of indigenous people’ problem. But, in case you want to spend time uselessly refuting this tiny point in a larger argument, you can inspect the photos below (it’s just a small chunk of my DNA test results). Alternatively, you can remember that interrogating someone in an attempt to make their indigeneity match your arbitrary criteria is generally not seen as good manners. 

Now, let’s go back to thathateful message (read: poorly disguised death threat) I received in my Tumblr DMs. I think it was like two or three weeks ago. I had recently gained a new follower whose blog’s primary focus was the fandom I contribute to, so I followed them back. I saw in my notes that they were going through my posts and liking them—as one does when gaining a new mutual. Yippee! 

Then they sent me this: 

I tried to explain that hate speech is not a way to go about participating in political discourse, but the person had already blocked me immediately after sending that message. Then, assured by the fact that I surely would never see them complaining about me on their blog (because, as I said, they blocked me), they posted a shouting rant accusing me of sympathizing with colonizing settlers and declaring me a “racist Zionist fuck.” Oh, the wonders of incognito tabs.

Where this person drew these conclusions after reading my (reblogged) post about antisemitism…. I'm not actually sure. But I greatly sympathize with them, and hope that they weren’t too personally offended by my desire to not die. 

For a while I contemplated this experience in my righteous anger, and tried to figure out a way to message this person. I wanted to explain that a) seeing a post about being Jewish and choosing to harass the creator about Israel is literally the definition of antisemitism and b) that sending a hateful DM and refusing to be held accountable is just childish and immature. But I gave up soon after—because, honestly, I knew it wasn’t worth my effort or energy. And I knew that I wouldn't be able to change their mind. 

But I still remember staring at that rather unfortunate meme, accompanied by an all-caps message demanding for me to Free Palestine, and thinking: the post didn’t even have any buzzwords. I remember the swoop of dread and guilt and fear. I remember wondering why this kind of antisemitism felt worse, in that moment, than the kind that leaves bodies in its wake. 

I remember thinking, I don’t have the power to free anyone.

I remember thinking, I’m so fucking tired. 

And before you tell me that this conflict isn’t about religion—let me ask you some questions. Why is it that Israel is even called Israel? (Here’s why.) Why do Jews even want it? (Here’s why.) But also, if you actually read the charters of Islamist terrorist organizations like ISIS, Hamas, and Hezbollah (among others), they equate the modern state of Israel with the Jewish people, and they use the two entities interchangeably. So of course this conflict is religious. It’s never been anything but that.

But I do wonder, when faced with those who deny this fact: how do I prove, through an endless slew of what-about-isms and victim blaming, that I too am hurting? How do I show that empathy is dialectical, that I can care deeply for Palestinians and Gazans while also grieving my own people? 

There's this thing that humans do, when we’re frustrated about politics and need to howl our opinions about it into the void until we feel better. We find like-minded souls, usually our friends and neighbors, and fret about the state of the world to each other until we’ve gone around in a satisfactory amount of circles. But these conversations never truly accomplish anything. They’re just a substitute, a stand-in catharsis, for what we really wish we could do: find someone who embodies the spirit of every Jew-hating internet troll, every ignorant justifier of terrorism, and scream ourselves hoarse at them until we change their mind.

But, of course, minds cannot be changed when they are determined to live in a state of irrational dislike. In Judaism, this way of thinking has a name: שנאת חינם (sinat hinam), or baseless hatred. It's a parasite with no definite cure, and it makes people bend over backwards to justify things like the massacre on October seventh, simply because the blame always needs to be placed on the Jews. 

So when a Jew is faced with this unsolvable problem, there is only one response to be had, only one feeling to be felt: anger. And we are angry. Carrying around rage with nowhere to put it is exhausting. It's like a weight at the base of our neck that pushes down on our spine, bending it until we will inevitably snap under the pressure. I’m still waiting to break, even now.

I wish I could explain to someone who needs to hear it that terrorism against Israelis happens every single day here, and that we are never more than one degree of separation away from the brutal slaughter of a friend, lover, parent, sibling. I wish it would be enough to say that the majority of Israelis (which includes Arab-Israeli citizens who have the exact same rights as Jewish-Israelis) wish for peace every day without ever having seen what it looks like. 

I wish I could show the world that Israel was founded as a socialist state, that it was built on communal values and born from a cluster of kibbutzim (small farming communities based on collective responsibility), and that what it is now isn’t what its people stand for. 

I wish the world could open their eyes to what we Israelis have seen since the beginning: that Hamas is the enemy, Hamas is the one starving Palestinians and denying them aid, Hamas is the one who keeps rejecting ceasefire terms and denying their citizens basic human rights. Hamas is the governing body of Gaza, not Israel. Hamas is responsible for the wellbeing of the Palestinian people. And Hamas are the ones who are more determined to murder Jews—over and over and over again, in the most animalistic ways possible—than to look inwards and see the suffering they’ve inflicted on their own people. I wish it was easier to see that.

But the wishing, the asking how can people be so blind, is never enough. I can never just say, I promise I don't want war. 

When I bear witness to this baseless hatred, I think of the victims of October seventh. I think of the women and girls who were raped and then murdered, forever unable to tell their stories. I think of the hostages, trapped underneath Gaza in dark tunnels, wondering if anyone will come for them. I think of Ori Ansbacher, of Ezra Schwartz, of Eyal, Gilad, and Naftali, of Lucy, Rina, and Maia Dee, of the Paley boys, of Ari Fuld and of Nachshon Wachsman. I think of all the innocent blood spilled because of terror-fueled hatred and the virus of antisemitism. I think of all the thousands of people who were brutally murdered in Israel, Jews and Muslims and Christians and humans, who will never see peace.

My ties to this land are knotted a thousand times over. Even when I leave, a part of me is left behind, waiting for me to claim it when I return. But when I see the grit it takes to live through this pain, when I see the suffering that paints the world the color of blood, I look to the heavens and I wonder why. 

I ask God: is it worth all this? He doesn't answer. So I am the one, in the end, to answer my own question. I say, it has to be. 

Feel free to send any genuine, respectful, and clarifying questions you may have to my inbox!

EDIT: just coming on here to say that I'm really touched & grateful for the love on this post. When I wrote it, I felt hopeless; I logged off of Tumblr for Shabbat, dreading the moment I would turn off my phone to find more hate in my inbox. Granted, I did find some, and responding to it was exhausting, but it wasn’t all hate. I read every kind reblog and comment, and the love was so much louder. Thank you, thank you, thank you. 🤍

Source Reading

The Whispered in Gaza Project by The Center for Peace Communications

Why Jews Cannot Stop Shaking Right Now by Dara Horn

Hamas Kidnapped My Father for Refusing to Be Their Puppet by Ala Mohammed Mushtaha

I Hope Someone Somewhere Is Being Kind to My Boy by Rachel Goldberg

The Struggle for Black Freedom Has Nothing to Do with Israel by Coleman Hughes

Israel Can Defend Itself and Uphold Its Values by The New York Times Editorial Board

There Is a Jewish Hope for Palestinian Liberation. It Must Survive by Peter Beinart

The Long Wait of the Hostages’ Families by Ruth Margalit

“By Any Means Necessary”: Hamas, Iran, and the Left by Armin Navabi

When People Tell You Who They Are, Believe Them by Bari Weiss

Hunger in Gaza: Blame Hamas, Not Israel by Yvette Miller

Benjamin Netanyahu Is Israel’s Worst Prime Minister Ever by Anshel Pfeffer

What Palestinians Really Think of Hamas by Amaney A. Jamal and Michael Robbins

The Decolonization Narrative Is Dangerous and False by Simon Sebag Montefiore

Understanding Hamas’s Genocidal Ideology by Bruce Hoffman

The Wisdom of Hamas by Matti Friedman

How the UN Discriminates Against Israel by Dina Rovner

This Muslim Israeli Woman Is the Future of the Middle East by The Free Press

Why Are Feminists Silent on Rape and Murder? by Bari Weiss

[o-wyrmlight]

I haven't said anything on here because I've been so focused on what's been happening on Twitter. I spent six or more hours last night just retweeting whatever I could to help raise a ruckus. For anybody who isn't aware of what's been happening:

For the past 75 years, Israel has been doing exactly what the United States of America did to indigenous natives when we first began to claim the territory. They've been pushing Palestinians off of their homeland and claiming the land for themselves. They've been stealing homes and territory that doesn't belong to them, engaging in a quiet genocide.

They control what goes in an out of the border. They control how much food Palestinians are allowed to have access to. They control how much water and electricity Palestinians have access to in a day. They control how many times a year and how far out fishing boats are able to go, and they're relegated to areas where there are no fish. The amount of ships aren't enough to sustain the population. Israel has ensured that Palestinians cannot build bomb shelters by preventing those materials from coming into the country.

On October 7th, 2023, a Gazan organization named Hamas, which is stationed in the Palestinian city of Gaza, decided to retaliate. They did a plethora of horrible things to Israeli people, taking hostages. In response, Israel has begun being more aggressive and upfront in its genocidal attempts to eradicate Palestinians.

This is not an exaggeration. Israel is very upfront about what they want. The official Israeli account has posted what they've done proudly. The first event that made people outside of Palestine aware of what was going on was the bombing of a hospital that Israel boasted of, and then later walked back to claim it was a Hamas base.

There are rules of war to follow. Among them, it is a war crime to attack where people are taking shelter in places of religion and hospitals. Once this information was revealed and made obvious, public outcry for the support of Palestine began to ring out. Apparently it wasn't even the first hospital that Israel had targeted--there were over 10 at the time and more to come in the following days.

Consider that Israel knew they were targeting the hospital and sent out a warning for them to evacuate, and then remind yourself that there were people in the in the hospital who relied on the medical equipment to live. Where were they supposed to go on such short notice? Children and babies were killed. Israel admitted to doing this and then claimed that the hospital was a Hamas base. And soon after, they claimed that it was a misfired rocket by Hamas that hit the hospital. Isn't that so convenient?

Israel has warned a city to travel the road down south in ten hours--on foot, on a hiking trail that takes more than twelve--to reach safety. They promised they would be safe and that Gaza was the only place they were aiming to destroy. Instead, Israel proceeded to bomb and destroy the only safe passage that they were able to get. They weren't safe at all.

In the days to come, Israel would proceed to turn off all electricity and water in Palestine. They would continue to bomb various places under the presumption that they were Hamas bases. Hamas comes from the city of Gaza, so that doesn't explain why several of those places--even hospitals--were much farther south.

Yesterday, they bombed the communication tower that Palestinians have been relying on to communicate with the outside world. As far as I know, they've been dark ever since.

Egyptians have been trying to help. They've been trying to demand the gates to open so that they can send humanitarian aid in. There are people--good people--who don't care if they die for the cause or not. Hardly any humanitarian aid has been able to come in, and Israel has been teasing Egypt, their own weaponry poking at their boarder as a threat. If several missiles cross Egyptian boarders, how is it their fault of they were aiming at a hostile air craft?

Remember how much Israel monitored what comes in and what comes out of Palestine. They control how much electricity and water a day they have. They control their maritime and how far from the coast they're allowed to fish. Do you think that Palestinians are able to build such air crafts?

Egyptians have witnessed the horrors that have been happening from across the sea. The sky was red with fire and alight with bombs. The horizon echoed with the noise and the assault didn't cease. I don't know if it's still going on. I don't know if it ever stopped. But Israel is sending out ground troops now, and who knows how far that went since last night.

Israel calls this a war. Palestinians haven't been able to fight back. They don't have any weapons or a military of their own. Entire families have been wiped off of the face of the earth, numbering probably well over forty by this point. Entire generations are at risk of being killed. This isn't a war. This is a genocide.

Israel claims that Hamas hides behind its civilians for protection, but all Israel is doing is hiding behind Hamas as an excuse to commit ethnic cleansing.

The worst part to me is that world powers who could have done something to prevent this are actively doing nothing. The United States has been providing Israel with the very weapons that they're using to obliterate Palestine off of the face of the map. Britain has outlawed protests speaking up in support of Palestine. And there are a lot of protests. The public opinion knows that this is wrong. Joseph Biden has casted doubt on how many Palestinians have actually died just before the blackout occured.

The warning signs have been here for 75 years, and nobody has done anything about it. And now Palestinians are facing the most brutal evil that mankind is capable of, and nobody who can do anything about it is willing to lift a finger. What's the point of the United Nations to create laws of war that are to be followed if those laws aren't going to be enforced? What kind of message does that send to countries that violate those laws?

That they can get away with it.

This isn't even to touch on the fact that Israel has been paying content creators and companies to speak up in support of Israel. I wouldn't be surprised if they're doing the same with popular celebrities in the United States and elsewhere. I wouldn't be surprised if this is a part of why politicians are refusing to lift a finger to hold Israel accountable for their actions. Israel has always wanted control of the narrative. This isn't the first time, and it won't be the last.

I do want to point out that despite these horrors, it's important to remember that, while Israel has done these horrible things, you shouldn't blame the individual people. Not every single Israeli believes in this genocidal cause, but the system of government that encourages and rewards these behaviors should be held accountable. Israelis who disagree with Israel are very likely at risk of being punished severely if they express their beliefs. It's important to remember that.

Israel will cry antisemitism because they are a Jewish state: Holding them accountable for their actions is not antisemitism. Do not be afraid to do so. I have seen videos of Jewish people in the United States leading mass protests in support of Palestine, calling for a ceasefire in Gaza, for Palestine to be free. Don't blame all Jewish people or Israelites for this horror. Be angry at Israel the government, Israel the politicians, Israel the people who support them rabidly and celebrate the death of millions.

I know for a fact that there are some things I've missed. It's so difficult to tactfully cover everything that's happened over the past couple of weeks. But hopefully this is enough to let those who aren't aware of what's been happening know.

I'm ashamed to be a United States American. And I am angry at the politicians and the people in power who could have voted for a ceasefire and didn't. We are witnessing the evils of humanity at work this month. And yet we are also witnessing the selfless good that humanity is capable of, leading protests to free Palestine and call for a ceasefire, trying their best to raise attention to the people who did nothing. History will remember them as the villains of this story.

It feels like there isn't much you can do. But just knowing and spreading awareness of the situation is enough. It is enough. Israel has hired companies and social media to do their best to stifle talk and conversation about Palestine. YouTube has deleted fifteen years' worth of videos examining the Palestinian occupation and Palestinian culture as a whole. Israel wants Palestine to die in silence and be forgotten.

All you need to know is what is happening. All you need to know is to remember and not forget. All you need to know is acknowledge the Palestinian's generations-long suffering, know that we're living through a genocide, and see how world powers do nothing about it. This is how Adolf Hitler got away with it for so long.

So remember. Keep it in mind. Learn the warning signs. And be sure to remember this when it happens again.

Free Palestine.

[aspiringwarriorlibrarian]

Biden does not control funding military aid to Israel. He can ask for it, but he can't authorize or send it. Congress controls military aid to Israel. Third party candidates don't work at the Presidential level, but they can work at the Congressional level and the primary level, and Congress already has people who are pushing to invoke the Leahy Act. Our best shot as USAmericans isn't demanding a ceasefire that we don't actually have the power to enact, it's voting more leftists into Congress and giving more voice and support to pro-Leahy candidates so they can make a stronger case and we can cut off military funding.

[contemplatingoutlander]

Young Americans are more pro-Palestinian than their elders. Why?

Originally posted 12/23/23; updated 12/24/23

This is a thought provoking article about how different U.S. generations perceive the current conflict between Israel and Hamas. To encourage people to read the entire article, this is a gift 🎁link so that anyone can read the article, even if they do not subscribe to The Washington Post.

Although I am from an older U.S. generation, I condemn the Netanyahu administration's decision to pursue Hamas at the unconscionable expense of tens of thousands Palestinian civilians, including many children.

However, reading this article helped me to also understand why, being born in the decade after the Holocaust, I don't absolve Hamas of their terrifying behavior on Oct. 7th--unlike many younger people seem to have done. Although I strongly oppose the apartheid Israel has imposed on the Palestinians (and I do believe that Palestine should have been a free separate state long ago), I still don't think there is any justification for such a terrorist act against Israeli civilians.

I encourage you to read the entire article, but here are a few excerpts:

Across more than two months of war between Israel and Hamas, public opinion on the conflict has continuously shifted. But there has been a constant: a divide between the views of older and younger Americans that has shown up both during the war and in the years leading up to it. [...] Each age group has a different “generational memory” of Israel, Dov Waxman,director of the UCLA Younes and Soraya Nazarian Center for Israel Studies, said. Beliefs about the world tend to form in our late teens and early 20s and often don’t change, he said. Older generations, with a more visceral sense of the Holocaust, tend to see Israel as a vital refuge for the Jews, he said, and see its story as one of a people returning to safety in their homeland after living for 2,000 years as a scattered diaspora facing persistent persecution. In the decades after its founding, Israel was a relatively lower-income and vulnerable country. [...] But by the time millennials began forming their understanding of global events, the violence of the second Intifada had concluded in the mid-2000s with enhanced walls and barriers constructed between Israel and the West Bank, and then Gaza. This generation formed its idea of Israel from reports of Palestinians denied access to water, freedom of movement and fair trials, under the military control of what was by then a relatively rich, nuclear-armed power. “When I was in college it was the Oslo peace process, and I still remember that Israel — pursuing peace with the Palestinians and the hopes that came along with that,” Waxman said, of the ’90s. “Younger Americans have no memory of that.”

[See more excerpts from the article under the cut. Those excerpts are worth reading because they are quite thought provoking.]

A racial justice lens Joey Ayoub, a Palestinian-Lebanese writer, podcaster and academic, says young Americans are more likely to conceptualize the Palestinian cause as a sister issue to U.S. efforts for racial justice. There is a “visual parallel,” he said: of an armed soldier or police officer dominating a space inhabited by a populace with limited power, whether in a town in the occupied West Bank or a majority-Black neighborhood in the United States. [...] Eitan Hersh, a political science professor at Tufts University, said conflict between Israel and Palestinians seems to be seen by the young left, especially on college campuses, as “a people of color — that is, the Palestinians — rising up against a white oppressor,” though a significant portion of Israel’s Jewish population is of a non-European background. (Some are the descendants of about 850,000 Jews who were expelled from Arab countries and Iran after Israel was founded.) “It’s a bit of a curiosity,” he said. “One could tell an oppressor-oppressed story where the Jews, and Israel, is a story of the oppressed: kicked out of all these countries, going back to their homeland, surrounded by a broad set of dominant countries in the region that wants to destroy it.” Shifting demographics One explanation for the generational divide, experts said, was that fewer Gen Zers and millennials identify as conservative or Christian — demographics more likely to sympathize with Israel — than older groups. [...] Another “major factor” in older generations’ feelings toward Israel is their greater religiosity, according to Waxman. More than three-quarters of Americans 60-64 are Christian — with increasingly higher numbers for older brackets — compared with about half of adults under 30. “It’s, I think, for many religious Christians, somehow a kind of atonement in supporting Israel and Zionism,” Waxman added. “Genuinely, a feeling of Israel as a consequence of this long history of Jewish persecution” by Christians. Some Christians, particularly among evangelicals who are especially likely to sympathize with Israel, believe that Israel was promised to the Jews by God, and that the return of the Jews to Israel fulfills a biblical prophecy of the events that will precede the second coming of Jesus Christ. But even outside of this belief, the idea of Israel as a sacred land for Judeo-Christians has an emotional resonance that is simply not present for the increasing number of secular young Americans. [...] Social vs traditional media Dana El Kurd, a nonresident fellow at the Middle East Institute, said different types of media consumption have probably played a role in how people have formed their views on the Middle East. Americans 45 and older are most likely to get their news from TV networks and their websites, and Americans younger than 45 are most likely to get their news through social media, according to 2022 YouGov polling. The regular use of TikTok in particular is correlated with criticism of Israel, a New York Times/Siena poll found this week. Ayoub, whose interview podcast “The Fire These Times” with Lebanese, Palestinian, Syrian, Jewish, and Armenian perspectives has mostly Gen Z and millennial listeners, said that new forms of media facilitated access between content creators and consumers without “having a gatekeeper.” This has downsides, including “a huge uptick in misinformation” online, he said, but also positives, including allowing traditionally underrepresented groups to reach an audience. [...] “I’ll give an anecdote,” El Kurd said. “My students, when the war broke out, said that they had gone onto TikTok and toggled between the different locations,” to see what kind of videos were popular in Israel compared with Gaza, the West Bank and other places. “It had never occurred to me before to do that.”

I encourage people to read the entire article.

I am strongly opposed to the apartheid that Israel imposed on the Palestinian population. But being from an older generation, I am also less likely to wholly embrace some of the (in my opinion) more simplistic generalizations that younger generations claim regarding Israel.

For instance, many younger people assume most Israelis are predominantly of white European ancestry, but there is evidence that about half the Israeli population is not of white European descent, including those who always lived in the region, those from Ethiopia and Northern Africa, and the descendants of the 20th century expulsion of 850,000 Jews from other nations in the Middle East.

There are also some estimates that only 20% of the general gene pool in Israel is white European. This in turn leads to questions about the assumption of many younger people that white European Jews engaged in a "settler colonialism" of Israel. Still, some form of colonization DID happen, even if it might not fit a strict definition of "settler colonialism."

But it is important to remember that most of the Jewish colonizers around the time of Israel's founding were refugees who had survived the Holocaust, or were running from Eastern European pogroms/oppression, or who were expelled from Iran and Arab nations. What is tragic is that many of these Jewish victims of persecution and oppression and/or their descendants ended up implementing or supporting oppressive practices towards the Palestinians in their attempts to create a Jewish state where they could finally feel safe.

In many ways, all the nations of the world who oppressed and persecuted Jews for centuries have some responsibility for this mess. But that does not absolve the Israeli leaders from their oppressive choices towards Palestinians (especially their current choices that have resulted in the deaths of tens of thousands of Palestinian civilians)--just as Israeli oppressive behavior does not absolve Hamas leaders for their decisions to employ terrorist tactics against Israeli civilians on Oct. 7th.

Although I still support a two-state solution, I believe there are no easy fixes to this situation. The conflict, for both Israelis and Palestinians is an emotional powder keg fueled by thousands of years of transgenerational trauma (both within the region, and outside it in the case of the Jewish diaspora). This in turn affects the perceptions and responses of both Israelis and Palestinians. Sadly the current conflict has only added a new layer to the transgenerational trauma of both groups.

Anyway, after reading the above article, I realize that coming from an older generation, my perspective on the Israeli-Hamas conflict is different than the perspectives of some younger people. However, I still think there should be an immediate cease fire, and that the Biden administration should STOP supporting Israel, unless Israelis agree to end the fighting, fully support a rapid international humanitarian aid effort for the Palestinians in Gaza, come to the table to negotiate peace, and finally allow the creation of a free Palestinian state.

Originally posted 12/23/23; updated 12/24/23

[republicansaredomesticterrorists]

I keep telling you Republicans are using pro-Palestine propaganda to split the Democratic vote by turning liberals against Biden.

There are so many new and old troll accounts here and on other social media sites that have no history of progressive messaging but are going full speed ahead to blame Biden for the war he had nothing to do with.

This page is joining others and blocking anyone who blames Biden for what is happening in Palestine. We’re not going to live through another Trump Republican nightmare because a few trolls are fooling people into blaming Biden.

Again for the mindless, who in their right minds thinks a Republican administration would be better for Palestinians or any Muslim. How short sighted can people be already.

No more RepubliKKKlan propaganda and dirty tricks. Vote Blue, end the wars, and f—k Iran and Putin for using Hamas as a tool.

[thecurrentevents]

the United States airdropped 38,000 meals into Gaza

some progress, I guess, but it’s not enough.

the airdrop on March 2, 2024, came two days after 100+ Palestinians were killed after Israeli forces opened fire on desperate, starving civilians in what was dubbed the “flour massacre.”

this is part of an US attempt to aid Palestinians as Gaza faces starvation. three US air force cargo planes dropped 38,000 meals — no water or medical supplies — in southwest Gaza. but cargo planes can’t carry as much as aid convoy trucks. and we’ve seen the tragedy that happened.

aid groups have criticized this plan, and they are absolutely right. they’ve said the focus should be forcing Israel to open up more ports and entryways into Gaza instead of airdropping because trucks can carry way more supplies, like I’ve mentioned.

there are also several drawbacks to airdropping supplies: it’s inefficient, expensive, and doesn’t provide enough aid. there are 1.5+ million refugees in Rafah. 38,000 meals can only provide for ~0.253% of the refugees. it’s not even 1%.

but the Gazans need everything they can get right now. airdrops, however inefficient they are, are essential for Gazans to survive.

support a ceasefire now.

sources underneath the cut:

the US has made its first airdrop of aid to Gaza - New York Times article

the US should focus on stopping Israeli obstruction of aid, not on airdrops, aid group says - New York Times article

US airdrops aid into Gaza - CNN article

[athingofvikings]

[destielmemenews]

source 1

source 2

source 3

Wikipedia page for Genocide Convention

[the-library-alcove]

One of the more disturbing symptoms of what I and other Jews refer to (with a dark and bitter humor) as "Israel Derangement Syndrome" is how quickly such individuals not only become hypocrites, but self-harming hypocrites.

There are no shortage of examples of hypocrites since October 7: feminists who deny the mass rapes on Oct 7. Landback advocates who deny Jewish history. Anti-torture advocates who support Hamas. Human rights advocates who support Hamas and the Houthis. And so forth.

But the self-harming hypocrites are a whole level beyond those examples, because their anti-Israel stance has the possibility of doing themselves real harm.

Let me give an example:

Leeja Miller. YouTuber, lawyer, and civil rights advocate. She has an entire series on "How [subsection of the US Right] Has Ruined Everything", and did several videos on the danger of a second term for Donald Trump, including one dedicated to Project 2025. That is the openly published plan to remake the US into a dictatorship under the next Republican president, giving details on how they will target minorities to have their rights stripped away, our legal protections against abuse by the rich and powerful weakened or removed, and generally make the US into a real life version of the Handmaid's Tale. So she knows what is at stake, directly and personally from her research. She knows how many people will be harmed or die under a Republican presidency, and how much it will harm the world at large if Trump gets back into the White House. It's not just the US population that will be harmed, it will be places like Ukraine, Taiwan... and Palestine. Because Trump and Netanyahu are fellow wannabe dictators.

And her Israel Derangement Syndrome is so severe that she just uploaded a video saying that, due to Biden supporting Israel alone, she can no longer advocate that her viewers vote for him.

Leeja knows what is at stake both in the US and in the Levant, and knows how Trump will give Netanyahu a full green light to do whatever Netanyahu wants. And yet, she is so fixated on "punishing Biden" for doing diplomacy and trying to rein in Netanyahu that she is willing to accept the risk of Trump regaining power.

And that's not only hypocrisy, that's hypocrisy that can have massive consequences for her and other people like her. And just to be clear here. She's not alone in this. She's just the best example due to her position as a lawyer and educator on the law and politics, and still is so fixated on this that she, and others like her, will advocate for positions that have the potential to harm hundreds of millions of people, because of the conflict in Gaza.

[generallemarc]

The following is something that hardly any "pro-Palestine" agitator is capable of

*Ahem*

Israel has done alot of objectively wrong things over the course of its history with Palestine, and that didn't magically go away in the past decade. It is a thoroughly paranoid state, and no matter how much that paranoia is justified by the existence of Hamas, Hezbollah and Iran it's no excuse for violating the civil rights of detainees, even if they're provably guilty of whatever crimes they've been accused of. Israel's air strikes in the current war have been too zealous, and there must be a certain point at which it would actually be less harmful in terms of civilian casualties to just send in the IDF on foot, and because of how utterly outmatched Hamas will be against professional soldiers, I feel as though that risk to the IDF ought to be taken for the sake of the innocent civilians who might be saved by it. Hamas isn't going to protect them by virtue of it being filled with genocidal monsters, and thus although it's unfair the onus is on Israel to do the job that the force that governs Gaza refuses to, or at least to try to.

See all of that? That was me being able to perceive and acknowledge reality even when it makes my side look bad. Because I see this war as a war, not a justification to start wishing death on millions. I see these civilians who've died for no reason as just that, instead of deserving of their fate for the crime of being born in the wrong country/to a family of the wrong faith or ethnicity. And I have the most basic of moral sensibilities to be able to look with that sight at all sides of a situation, and not just the ones that it's convenient to look at. But one thing I haven't seen is very many "pro-Palestine" people being able to admit to the observable reality of things like hostage taking, use of human shield tactics, and the fact that Hamas's charter brings up the Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion as if it were true. It's really sad that the last one has had to become my armor-piercing round, or rather sad that that's armor-piercing to their arguments and "Hamas are actively trying to commit genocide" isn't. But I guess that's just what it means to be a "progressive" these days.