#israel positive

[sugas6thtooth]

Her smile is so beautiful! I would love to see a smile as bright on the face of all of the children in Palestine. 🇵🇸

[kittyprincessofcats]

ICJ Ruling

Okay, let's get into this.

First of all, I get the frustration at the court not ordering a ceasefire. I was disappointed and frustrated at first too, since a ceasefire was the biggest and most important preliminary measure South Africa was requesting - and of course we just all want this horror to finally end for the people in Gaza. So I get the frustration and disappointment, I really do.

However, I do think this ruling is still a major win for South Africa, Palestine, and international law as a whole and here's why:

The court acknowledged that it has jurisdiction over this case and completely dismissed Israel's request to throw out the case as a whole. It will now determine at the merits stage (that will probably take years) whether Israel is actually commiting genocide.

The court acknowledged that Palestinians are a "distinct national or ethnic group and therefore deserving of protection under the genocide convention". Pull this out next time someone tells you "there's no such thing as Palestinians, they're all just Arabs".

The court acknowledged very unambiguously that "at least some" of Israel's actions being genocidal in nature is "plausible". South Africa has a case, officially. Israel is accused of genocide, in a way the ICJ deems "plausible", officially. This is huge. (And seriously, how freaking satisfying was it to hear all of those genocidal statements by Israeli politicians read out loud and used as justification for this rulling?)

The court might not have ordered a "ceasefire" in those words, but they did order Israel to "immediately end all genocidal acts" (which includes killing and injuring Palestinians) and submit proof that they actually did. How are they going to comply with this ruling without at least severly reducing or changing what they're doing in Gaza?

In fact, this wording might actually be more appropriate for a genocide (vs a war), as author and journalist Ali Abunimah notes on Twitter:

He's completely right. Israel lost today, by overwhelming majority (I mean, 15 to 2? I heard people predict the rulings would be very close, like 9 judges vs 8, but instead we got 15 to 2 (and even 16 to 1 on the humanitarian aid). Holy shit.) The court disimissed almost everything Israel's side of lawyers said, while acknowledging that South Africa's accusations are "plausible".

And this is important especially because of Mr Abunimah's second tweet there^. Because the question is, where do we go from here?

This ruling means that Israel is officially /possibly/ commiting genocide and that should have huge international consequences. The rest of the world now HAS to take these accusations seriously and stop arming and supporting Israel - and if they won't do it on their own, we, the people, have to make them. This is THE moment to rise up all around the world, especially in the countries most supportive of Israel (the US, the UK, Germany): Protest, call your representatives and demand a ceasefire and an end of arms deliveries to Israel.

We now have a legal case to back our demands: If Israel is, according to the ICJ, "plausibly" commiting genocide, then all of our governments are, according to the ICJ, "plausibly" guiltly of aiding in genocide. And we need to hold that over their heads and demand better. We need to do that right now and in huge numbers. Most politicians only care about themselves and saving their skin. We have to make them realize that they could be accused of aiding in genocide.

(As a German, I'm thinking of Germany here in particular: After South Africa's hearing, our government dismissed their case as having "no basis" - how are they going to keep saying that now that the ICJ officially thinks otherwise? Over the last months, people here have been arrested at protests for calling what's happening in Gaza a genocide. How are the police supposed to legally keep doing that now that the ICJ has officially deemed this accusation "plausible"? I used to be scared to use the word "genocide" at protests or write it on my protest signs - not anymore, have fun trying to arrest me for that when the ICJ literally has my back on this one 🖕🏻.)

So yeah - don't be defeatist about this, don't let Israel's narrative that they "won" (they didn't) take over. This might not be everything we wanted, but it's still a good result. Don't let what the court didn't say ("ceasefire"), distract you from the very important things that they did say. Let this be your motivation to get loud and active, especially if you live in any country that supports Israel. Put pressure on your governments to not be complicit in genocide, you now officially have the highest international court on your side.

[reasonsforhope]

Where can I find Free Palestine protests and Ceasefire protests?

A super international and continually updated list of actions can be found at Samidoun: Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network's:

Calendar of Resistance for Palestine 2024

They list events by date, then alphabetically by country, then by city - and it's common for them to have dozens of actions listed for a single date, especially on the weekends.

The United States especially often has 40+ events on a single day, especially on the weekends.

Events are posted with links to the event info posted by whoever's hosting the vast majority of the time.

Look blow the read-more for a list of many of the countries that have been on this protest calendar, in alphabetical order, since I know so many websites/lists of actions are country-specific

*Obviously this isn't the only good source of listings for protest events - there are many others. This is by far the biggest/most international roundup I've found, though, so I started with this. If you know another good place for finding ceasefire protests/events, please feel free to add it in the notes, bc I'm planning to put a bigger roundup together once I find enough other sites

Countries that Samidoun has listed/does list protests for include (in alphabetical order):

North America:

United States

Canada

Mexico

Puerto Rico (listed separately in anti-colonial solidarity)

Hawai'i (listed separately in anti-colonial solidarity)

Europe:

Austria

Belgium

Bulgaria

Denmark

England

Finland

France

Germany

Greece

Hungary

Iceland

Ireland

Italy

Netherlands

Norway

Portugal

Romania

Scotland

Serbia

Spain

Sweden

Switzerland

Wales

SWANA Region (Southwest Asia/North Africa)*:

Bahrain

Iraq

Jordan

Kuwait

Lebanon

Palestine

Tunisia

Turkiye (Turkey)

*Samidoun notes that "We know that these events are mainly international and that the Arab people are marching everywhere for Palestine – we will be honored to add more Arab events whenever we are informed!"

Asia:

Bangladesh

India

Indonesia

Japan

Malaysia

Maldives

Pakistan

South Korea

Africa:

Kenya

Mauritius

Nigeria

South Africa

Tanzania

Tunisia

*Duplicating North African countries (well, Tunisia) here from the SWANA list btw

South America:

Brazil

Colombia

Chile

Peru

Venezuela

Australia and Oceania:

Aotearoa (New Zealand)

Australia

[funkopersonal]

Here's your daily reminder that...

Jews are only 0.2% of the worlds population but...

Jews make up 14% of the World Total and 38% of the United States of America total winners for the Nobel Prize for Literature (source).

Of the 965 individual recipients of the Nobel Prize and the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences between 1901 and 2023, at least 214 have been Jews or people with at least one Jewish parent, representing 22% of all recipients. (source)

Jews make up 14% of the total winners of the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction 18% of the total winners of the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry; 53% of the total winners of the Pulitzer Prize for Non-Fiction (source).

Jews make up 39% of the total winners of the Antoinette Perry (Tony) Award for Best Play; 54% of the total winners of the Tony Award for Best Book of a Musical (with 62% of all Composers and 66% of all Lyricists of Best Musical-winning productions being Jewish) (source).

Jews make up 40% of the total winners of the Academy Award (Oscar) for Best Original Screenplay; and 34% of the total winners of the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay (source).

Although Jews constitute only 3% of the U.S. population...

80% of the nation’s professional comedians are Jewish (source).

90% of American comic book creators are jewish (source)

38% of the recipients of the United States National Medal of Science are Jewish (Source).

Jews are very successful, with educational levels higher than all other U.S. ethnic groups with the exception of Asian Americans, and income levels the highest of all groups. Six out of ten Jewish adults have college degrees, and 41% of Jewish families report a household income of $75,000 or more” (source)

Jews are a minority across the globe. We've been historically opressed and hated. But these key figures from history are all Jewish and loved, yet many don't even know they're jewish (or they don't know these people in the first place!):

Stan Lee (birth name: Stanley Martin Lieber) - An American comic book writer and editor, Former executive vice president and publisher of marvel Comics, creator of iron-man, spider-man, and more.

Albert Einstein - a Theoretical physicist, Received the 1921 Nobel Prize in Physics, developed the theory of relativity and the "worlds most famous equation"  (E = mc^2), and more.

Ruth Bader Ginsburg - Former Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, co-authored the initial law school casebook on sex discrimination, co-founded the Women’s Rights Project at the ACLU in 1972, and more.

Jack Kirby (birth name: Jacob Kurtzberg) - an American comic book artist, co-creator of Captain America, one of the most influential comic book artists

Harry Houdini (birth name: Erich Weisz) - a Hungarian-American escape artist, illusionist, and stunt performer, noted for his escape acts.

Emma Lazarus - An American author remembered for her sonnet "The New Colossus," Inspired by The Statue of Liberty and inscribed on its pedestal as of 1903.

Julius Rosenthal, Lillian Wald, Rabbi Emil G. Hirsch, Stephen Wise, and Henry Moskowitz - Jewish activists that helped form the NAACP along with W.E.B. Dubois, Ida B. Wells-Barnett, and Mary Church Terrell.

Mark Zuckerberg - Founder and CEO of Meta, a businessman who co-founded the social media service Facebook, and within four years became the world’s youngest self-made billionaire Harvard alumni.

Joseph Pulitzer - a politician and newspaper publisher, his endowment to the Columbia University established the Pulitzer Prizes in 1917, he founded the Columbia School of Journalism which opened in 1912.

Jacob William Davis - a Latvian tailor who is credited with inventing modern jeans and who worked with Levi Strauss to patent and mass-produce them, died.

Irving Berlin - drafted at age 30 to write morale-boosting songs for military revues (including “God Bless America”). Many Berlin songs remained popular for decades, including “Puttin’ on the Ritz,” “Cheek to Cheek,” “Anything You Can Do (I Can Do Better),” “There’s No Business Like Show Business,” and two celebrating Christian holidays: “White Christmas” and “Easter Parade.”

Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel - received his doctorate in Berlin. He was arrested by the Nazis in 1938, moved to the U.S. in 1940, and became an influential figure in the 1960s, marching with the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. in Selma, Alabama, and speaking out against the Vietnam War.

Elie Wiesel - Romanian-American writer and professor, holocaust survivor, nobel laureate, political activist. Authored 57 books including Night, a work based on his experiences as a Jewish prisoner in the Auschwitz and Buchenwald concentration camps

Bob Dylan - an icon of folk, rock and protest music, won the Nobel Prize in literature for his complex and poetic lyrics.

J. Robert Oppenheimer - ran the Manhattan Project, considered the "father of the atomic Bomb," presented with the Enrico Fermi Award by President Lyndon Johnson.

Betty Friedan - co-founded the National Organization of Women and became its first president, wrote The Feminine Mystique (1963) and helped spark the second wave of feminism.

Gloria Steinem - one of the most prominent feminists of all time, launched Ms. Magazine and co-founded the National Women’s Political Caucus with Bella Abzug, Shirley Chisholm, Betty Friedan and Myrlie Evers-Williams, widow of Medgar Evers.

Sergey Brin - an American businessman best known for co-founding Google with Larry Page, president of Alphabet Inc.

Judith Heumann - a founder of the disability rights movement, led a 26-day sit-in at a federal building in San Francisco. The protest spurred implementation of Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act, a precursor to the Americans with Disabilities Act.

Larry Kramer - co-founded Gay Men’s Health Crisis in response to the AIDS epidemic but was soon ousted over his confrontational activism. He went on to help launch a more strident group, ACT UP, and wrote a critically acclaimed play, The Normal Heart, about the early AIDS years in New York City.

Steven Spielberg - released his critically acclaimed epic film Schindler’s List, based on the true story of a German industrialist who saved Jews during the Holocaust. The movie won seven Oscars and led Spielberg to launch the Shoah Foundation at the University of Southern California, which filmed interviews with 52,000 survivors of the Holocaust and genocides in Nanjing and Rwanda.

Calvin Klein - made designer jeans and the infamous ad starring Brooke Shields revolutionized the fashion industry, sold his company to Phillips-Van Heusen (now PVH) for $430 million. Klein was the first designer to win three consecutive Coty Awards for womenswear.

Daveed Diggs - an American actor, rapper, and singer-songwriter. he originated the dual roles of Marquis de Lafayette and Thomas Jefferson in the musical Hamilton, for which he won a 2016 Tony Award for Best Actor in a Featured Role in a Musical. Along with the main cast of Hamilton, he was awarded a Grammy Award for Best Musical Theater Album in the same year.

And so much more. (a pretty decent list is available here)

Not only that, but the following are all Jewish inventions...

The Teddy Bear - made by Morris and Rose Michtom in honor of Theodore "Teddy" Roosevelt.

The Ballpoint Pen - *the first commercially sucessfull ballpoint pen was made by Lazlo Biro, a Hungarian-Jew, and his brother.

Mobile Phones - made by Martin Cooper, nicknamed the "father of the cellphone", and was born in Chicago to Ukrainian Jewish immigrants.

The Barbie - made by Ruth Marianna Handler, born to Polish-Jewish immigrants.

Power Rangers - made by Haim Saban, a Jewish-Egyptian

Video Games - made by Ralph Baer, a German-Jew

Peeps - made by Sam Born, a Russian-Jewish immigrants who came to the United States in 1909.

Cards Against Humanity - created by a group of Jewish boys from the same high school

Many Superheroes including Superman, Ironman, spider-man, batman, and more!

and more! (an illustrated list available here.)

Conclusion: If you're Jewish, be proud. You come from a long line of successful people. No matter what happened to them, Jews persevered, and they strived for sucess. Be proud of your culture, your history, these are your people. You're Jewish.

(feel free to reblog and add more, or just comment and i'll add it!)

Last Updated: June 25, 1:35 AM EST

[ember-knights]

I am seeing less people talking even though the situation is more dire than ever. I know we are all tired. It is understandable.

Keep it up though. Put your frustration and pain into work and use it. Turn to your family and friends and support each other through it.

To quote Shreen abu Aklaa: “The cause needs a lot of endurance. Keep your spirits up”

Art work by : Sally Samir

We are lucky to be alive and well. Use it.

[stereotypicaljewishmother]

This is a video of Israel and Israelis celebrating Noa’s return.

Am Yisrael Chai!

[toboldlymuppet]

i think there's something so mean about how, when S1 ended and GB broke up, izzy AND his fans were called abusers (among other, horrifying things), i closed all my anon asks and twitter/ig dms because of it. i came into the fandom when the season just ended, "this feels like coming home" i said, and got a death threat a few days later. "i just want izzy to be happy", and a dm saying "you don't belong here" arrived. i got dragged in a doxxing scare, someone i know did get doxxed. now S2 has ended and what we feel is a disservice to his character, on the road to recovery and healing after the horrors of episode 1-3 and a suicide survivor dealing with disability, he gets killed off unceremoniously because 'he has no more role in the narrative'? just when he found a family and belonging he could've sailed with? he could've been written out without dying, getting his own happy ending. instead, he got killed by a stray bullet, on an avoidable 'suicide mission' (had someone else taken his place). and with us being upset, suddenly we have no right to grieve and be sad about this? suddenly we have people laughing at us and downplaying how heartbroken we are? we saw him happy and at home, we just wanted to end the show with that, him alive and experiencing the world with family. i related to him so much, of course it hurts. a lot of izzy fans started the S3 renewal campaign because we wanted to think everyone would get their happy endings. it's so sad to think about the show now. it's been more than a year and i still love this character and the community he's brought me. he's gotten me through tough times and given me hope. let us have this, let us be sad and upset and speak our criticisms, for kindness sake, for the kindness the show used to promise us. the same way people whose ships get broken up on cliffhangers and tragic ends are upset, let us have this too. this is a public message, but you have nothing good to say, if you're here to downplay the hurt, if you're here to laugh, please just scroll on by or block.

[stil-lindigo]

ABC News in Australia covers the story of how community groups all over the country are coming together as a community to provide for returning Gazan families.

El Rahman Inc. stands at the forefront of this community effort in Naarm/Melbourne, and on the organisation’s Instagram page, regularly posts updates on what supplies are currently needed. It accepts monetary and supply donations at drop off points (which are currently closed until the 28th Dec).

The PCIA has also been instrumental in organising resources for returning Palestinian families. For more widespread support not limited to Melbourne, please consider donating to the Arab Council of Australia, another independent non-profit which has a long history of supporting their community. They are based in New South Wales, which is home to Australia's largest population of Arabic-speaking Australians.

--

ABC's news report also highlights that between October 7 and November 20, Home Affairs granted 860 visas to Palestinians, including those seeking to depart Gaza. However, what they fail to give proper attention to is the fact that Israel has been preventing Palestinians from leaving.

[ link ]

Of the around 860 visas distributed, only 143 Palestinians have managed to successfully arrive in Australia, with the number of new names being added to 'the list' falling to a pathetic degree. To understand the grave conditions of Palestinians awaiting safe passage, this is a great article to read. And although politicians like Penny Wong insist they are doing everything in their power to help Palestine in this time, Australia still shamefully stands by its strongest ally, the US, and actively provides military surveillance of the Gaza Strip to Israeli sources through Pine Gap, a military base in Alice Springs.

In this time, it is imperative to maintain pressure on the Australian government. Protest and vocal pro-Palestine movement is the only thing that caused Australia to eventually vote for a ceasefire in the recent UN resolution, after their cowardly performance earlier. Resources like vic_socialists on Instagram, regardless of where you may stand on their performance as a party itself, has been outstanding in organising regular protest movements across all of Victoria. APAN also maintains a list of pro-Palestine events all around Australia on their website, although I'm not sure at this point if it's exhaustive.

[historicity-was-already-taken]

howlerofthemoon2, in regard to this post:

Genuine question cause I've been seeing posts of this nature on my dash. Why is this the focus? When we have a clear perpetrator and clear victims, why do we need to focus on how to heal the perpetrators (Zionist Israelis) as they are still harming people (Palestinians) and not actively removing the club from their hand

This is a history blog written by an American Jewish Holocaust historian who is concerned with memory and attitudes within her own community, and this is what I choose to write about in relation to my observations of the discourse surrounding recent events.

You're seeing posts of this nature because people like you are going around leaving comments implying that all Jews are right wing Israelis complicit in murdering babies in Gaza, and it's traumatizing us. Because that is rhetoric which has been violently deployed against us for centuries. You're seeing posts of this nature because people like you are going around policing the conversations Jewish creators choose to have in relation to their lived experiences since Oct 7. We would love not to be having these conversations, but we have to, because of users like you.

I am presently choosing to use my knowledge as a historian to call in parts of my community, and help explain some of our communal responses to things to outsiders. If you would like to see me screaming about how much I h8 Israel and what a Good, Righteous, anti-Zionist Left Wing Jew I am, there are plenty of posts like that. And if you don't like what I write about on my history blog as an American Jewish Holocaust historian, then don't follow me.

Finally, I don't believe that this WAS a genuine question. It's so cartoonishly stepped in hostile, anti-Semitic, fifth-columnist, global JudeoZionist hivemind undertones and assumptions that it's difficult to believe it wasn't intentional. Also your blog only has one post. But, in case you are being genuine, please understand that people just like you are the reason why Jews like me and so many of the Jews who follow this blog feel deeply unsafe participating in non-Jewish pro-Palestinian activist spaces.

[sugas6thtooth]

[infiniteglitterfall]

Pick the position that fits you best. You can add nuance in the notes afterward. Everyone is welcome to vote, and encouraged to reblog.

Since the term "Zionism" comes from Jewish culture, you're welcome to specify whether or not you're Jewish in the notes. I think it's interesting to see how the term has taken on different connotations for different people. LINGUISTICS!

[justasunflowerseed]

so I bought this flag last pride and ever since then I had this idea for a drawing in my head that wouldn't leave me alone, and now I finally had time to sit down and draw it!!! it turned out so well too, I don't usually shade with brown but it worked out better than I expected.

[redstonedust]

ive said this before but if you hear israel is allowed to compete in eurovision again and your response is ''lol but theyre not even in europe'' or ''eurovision has bad music anyways'' then you are like. majorly missing the point.

[redvelvetwishtree]

[stil-lindigo]

Source

While reading this interview with a West Bank settler, it's important to remember her views do not represent those of all Israelis just like Israel does not represent all Jews. There has been sizeable protest in Tel Aviv against the genocide (quickly squashed under Netanyahu’s police force just like all other pro-palestinian sentiment) but it’s worth reading to get insight into the minds of average people who cheer on Palestinian deaths, and draw up a chair to watch hellfire rain down on innocents. This is the impact of years of settler-colonial propaganda - a complete dehumanisation of a scapegoat population.

It also has to be said that ALL colonialist countries are complicit in encouraging this kind of extremism, by facilitating and stoking the fires of islamophobia post-9/11. Israel is not an outlier - this kind of sentiment is festering EVERYWHERE and attempting to detach yourself and your country's identity from it is like burying your head in the sand.

If you stand on the side of Palestinians in this crisis, you have to be prepared to recognise the signs of islamophobia and fascism everywhere, and stand against them.

[titsliker]

i love charlie but i do wish the mf would put a little more thought and research into the companies he accepts sponsorships from