#nothing justifies the atrocities being done in gaza

[marsconer]

hi hm friendly reminder that the average jewish person outside of israel has the same amount of guilt and responsibility for the genocide as you or me ( assuming you’re not jewish ) and until said otherwise by them you shouldn’t assume they support israel’s atrocities. and we should be able to hold space for fact that jewish people are historically persecuted AND that Israel is weaponizing that history to deflect criticism and accusations while conducting a massacre.

[demoisverysexy]

Listen guys, just because Israel is to blame for Hamas doesnt mean we are going to, in any way, shape, or fashion, take Hamas's side or justify their actions, ok? Hamas is fucking evil, and their existence is beneficial to Israels right wing government. Everybody loses here: Innocent civilians are being killed by Hamas, and now Israel is threatening to respond ten-fold and glass Gaza. Nothing Hamas here has done helps, it just gives Israel an excuse to commit more atrocities. Dont cheer on hamas, or excuse them, or anything. Contextualize their actions? Sure. But Hamas arent the good guys here.

[starlightshadowsworld]

Palestinians elected a terrorist organization to run their gov’t. That gov’t attacked Israel. Hamas AND the Palestinians who voted for them are responsible for every death. They wanted war. They got war. Deal with it.

If this was a war, Israel's actions would still be criminal.

They've committed every war crime in the book.

Though this is not a war.

Not that they aren't already violating every international law under the sun.

But who's counting?

Israel is an illegal apartheid state, their existence in Palestine is illegal.

And has been since 1948.

Hamas didn't come to being till 1987, so what about those 39 years?

When the Nakba (1948) and the Naksa (1967) occurred, the two major events that caused thousands of Palestinians to be displaced from their homes.

Israel was responsible for it all, there wasn't no Hamas to blame it all on than.

Or the time prior to their creation where the Zionists were invading Palestinian villages and torturing innocents.

Such as Deir Yassen, who's massacre has become infamous.

And is where the Palestinian child in oven story came from, with an Israeli soilder demanding a baker to throw his son in an oven and threw them both in when the baker refused.

There was no Hamas than. Israel did this all of their own doing.

And you don't need to take my word for it, Israeli soilders lovingly recount these atrocities with a smile.

Not to mention that Hamas was created by Israel as a way to destabilise Gaza.

And the moment they turned on Israel to fight for their people, Israel tries to pretend they were never involved.

As for the election, half of Gaza's population is under the age of 18.

The children Israel are mercilessly bombing and killing weren't at the age to vote, nor alive to vote in an election in 2006.

And what of those outside of Gaza?

Palestinians in the West Bank who are being killed, their is no Hamas in the West Bank.

It's almost like the colonial oppressors of Israel are the ones responsible for all of this.

The people who continue to blockaded Gaza and have done for 16 years, control their food supplies, water, fuel and don't allow Palestinians to return home.

All the Palestinians want is peace, to exist on the land that is and always has been there's.

The land that Israel is illegally occupying.

None of these atrocities, no one would have been killed if it wasn't for Israel.

Hell they've admitted to killing their own civilian hostages.

And denied wanting anymore hostages released. Any calls for peace, they refuse.

Hostages that have spoken pit against them and spoke of being treated humanly by Hamas.

Hostages that were taken in exchange for the thousands of innocent imprisoned Palestinians in Israeli.

Prisoners who don't get trials, and are mostly children.

This genocide been ongoing since 1948, it cannot be reduced to the 7th October.

Israel wants to wipe Palestinians off the face off the earth. And now they have the perfect excuse too.

They are responsible for every death. Along with everyone who supports them.

If Israel stopped fighting, no one would die.

If Palestinians stopped fighting they would be completly wiped out.

The one time Palestine fights back is the one time anyone cares, and blames them for their own massacre.

As if Israel isn't completly responsible and have been killing Palestinians since before the Israeli settlers settled in Palestine.

Israel tried for years to pretend that Palestinians never existed, now they are blaming them for their own massacre.

It is Israel dropping bombs on civilians, on ambulances, on houses, on hospitals, on schools, on churches, on mosques etc.

All things that are war crimes and violate international law.

Nothing they have done is justified.

And it never will be.

Palestinians were free once and they will be free again.

From the river to the sea.

[nerdylilpeebee]

It does mean something tho, the one who “provoked” is more responsible. Let’s be fr rn. They’re not on the same level. And by your own logic, if you can justify those actions of Israel… then aren’t you the same as the ones justifying Hamas?

I don’t agree with supporting Hamas, but Israel has been doing what Hamas does for way longer and way worse. Look at how their citizens view Palestine’s! Teenagers all smiling and purposely blocking trucks to prevent recourses being supplied to Gaza? All those video’s of soldiers and ex-soldiers laughing about r-wording (little) girls. Throwing a baby in a bakery’s oven and ordering the father to follow him? Just for “fun”. How would you justify that.

And I think it’s pointless to argue over Hamas as the only argument against Israel. Again, before you blow up, I don’t agree with Hamas. But everything they did, Israel has done to. Maybe even longer or worse. There is no weighing in what either party did in war, “whataboutism” is pointless when one has done worse. The “provoker” is in the wrong. They started it.

Also idk if they’re is something with your news outlets but they do target civilians? Small example, they 3 man dead in a hospital last week. Israel’s soldiers were disguised as women to get in?? Wtf. Tried to justify it by saying that they were members from Hamas, which turns out was a lie. One was a patient and the other two were guarding/looking over him. My country has no ties to either, it’s a neutral news outlet and I checked it myself so why would they lie about these things?

First, no they really aren't. Killing innocent civilians is not something that can be justifiably provoked. If you went out of your way to specifically target civilians, what whoever you're blaming your actions on did is IRRELEVANT. You targeted civilians. By definition innocents. By definition people who had nothing to do with whatever your excuse is. You cannot be provoked into killing innocent people.

And no, I'm justifying actions meant to defend innocent people from terrorists. People justifying Hamas are justifying killing innocent civilians. That is not the same thing.

And no, they really fucking haven't. XD I have yet to see even a single instance of them doing the same brutality that Hamas commits that wasn't lies spread as propaganda. And my oh my, some Israeli's view Palestinians poorly. Couldn't be because their government has been launching missiles at them for decades and Palestinians have literally posted videos of them cheering on the deaths of Israeli's or anything. No certainly not. They just must be racial supremacists or whatever justifies you condemning them viewing people who cheer on their deaths poorly.

And again, show me the proof of these teenagers blocking trucks from entering Gaza. Then explain how these Israeli teenagers got to Egypt, where the trucks are entering Gaza from. oh, and be sure to then explain how a handful of teenagers makes Israeli's them on the same level as people who cheer on terrorists butchering innocent people.

Feel free to provide proof of these soldiers joking about raping little girls, and again, go on to explain why that means anything. Same with them throwing a baby in an oven (a claim I've seen made about Hamas, not the IDF. Something tells me you're consuming too much terrorist propaganda).

No, they really fucking haven't. What Hamas has done, Israel did not fucking do too. And frankly, the fact that you think if they did it makes Hamas any less of the bad guy here for starting a war by killing over 1400 innocent people, kidnapping over 200 more and then using the population of a country as human shields when the country they attacked retaliates to the CONSTANT AGGRESSION being capitalized with the worst terror attack since 9/11. Atrocities do not justify attrocities. And if you answer atrocity by butchering innocent people, you are NOT fighting atrocity. You are just looking for a reason to be a killer.

And no, actually, everything I've seen about the "killing 3 men in a hospital" thing happened in the West Bank, not Gaza, and there has so far been no proof these were real Israeli soldiers acting under orders. They could easily have been extremists. As for why they'd lie, are you fucking kidding me? XD non-palestinian sources have been spreading lies about this conflict from the jump, there is every reason to assume they're fucking lying. Plenty of countries, like South Africa, are trying to use this conflict to distract from bad shit in their own countries, why wouldn't even more try to do the same?

And besides, even if they are Israeli soldiers, infiltrating a hospital to kill 3 suspected terrorists is not the same thing as mass-butchering innocent people. These are not comparable actions! Yeah, they're both wrong, but one is INFINITELY worse than the other!

It's not whataboutism. One side is a terrorist organization killing innocent people en-mass. People calling out blatant lies, misinformation and propaganda spread by pro-palestine idiots with the intention to make Israel seem Evil and thus ok to genocide while ignoring Hamas' actions is not whataboutism. Wanting you to acknowledge that Hamas is not the fucking good guys is not whataboutism. You can easily criticize Israel without spreading lies or defending terrorists.

[realthoughtsreal]

Atrocities

In a world full of humans that consider themselves the superior beings, there is no question about who the beasts are. It is not animals that torture each other because they want to. The lion is not cruel for hunting a zebra to feed.

There is nothing on Earth capable of cruelty. Except humans.

🇵🇸

I think there’s no one unaware of what is happening in Gaza right now, in Palestine. What started in 1948.

I’ve been aware of the war going on in Palestine for years.

I find it baffling how so many are finding out about this only now, when the corpses of the dead are sky high, when so many are lost and can never go home now.

How dare the world make promises like ‘never again’? How dare the world make promises and once again stand still, as genocides take place? How dare you stand there and look away? How dare you stay quiet?

How can you stay quiet?

I find it horrifying and heartbreaking. I find it even more atrocious that the people doing this should be people who understand what genocide is like.

How can they go ahead and do what was done to them, to others? What about ‘treat others like you want to be treated’? Has that phrase never mattered at all?

I do not understand.

I do not understand.

I cannot understand.

I cannot condone.

Why? How? How can your heart and your mind and your conciousness condone this? How can people who suffered through genocide do this others? How can you possibly try to justify this?

Nothing justifies the killing of innocents. Nothing. Nothing justifies this violence and crimes against humanity. Nothing ever has, nothing ever will. Nothing justifies the atrocities of WW2, nothing justifies this either. I cried when as a child I learned about the Holocaust. I cry now with the people of Palestine, for them.

How can we let history repeat itself? Is the human species really that utterly hopeless? Do we not learn from the past?

Are we, quite literally, the only species on Earth that does not learn from its mistakes?

If a young bunny steps into a trap, it’ll come to know pain but survive. The next time it comes into contact with a hunter trap, it will jump aside.

Animals learn. Nature learns.

Why can’t humans? We are the one species that doesn’t follow the natural balance of the world. Do we even belong here? What kind of monsters are we, to repeat the same mistakes over and over and over and over?

Do not stay quiet. Use your voice, speak out for those that can’t.

Above all, remember empathy, remember compassion, remember love.

Drop aside hate and bias, prejudice and stereotypes, racism and xenophobia, revenge and resentment.

Nothing justifies this. Nothing. Look upon what’s happening with your own eyes and ask yourself:

Why can I live but they can’t?

We’re all human. Aren’t we?

There’s not a day that I don’t think about the genocide happening in Palestine. I mourn and grieve for the dead, with all those suffering.

#freepalestine 🇵🇸

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

By: Metta World Peace

Published: Oct 30, 2023

Lately, a lot of people have been asking me, “How do you feel about this situation with Israel and Gaza? I’m sure you know people on both sides.”

And I tell them, “I know Israeli Jews, and I know American Jews. And both have relatives, friends and loved ones who were raped, tortured and killed Oct. 7.”

Hamas has inflicted terror on innocent Israelis — more than 1,400 of whom were murdered in a single day of savagery not seen since ISIS’s horrific attacks in the 2010s.

Yet every day, new painful details of rape, mutilation and torture continue to emerge. 

Hamas’ terrorist attack on the Tribe of Nova music festival was heartbreaking.

It was something straight out of a movie and would have been America’s worst mass-shooting event of all time had it happened on US soil.

At least 260 young people were butchered (60 were killed in the worst such shooting in American history, at a 2016 Las Vegas festival).

Having grown up in Queens’ Queensbridge projects, I’ve lived through many traumatic events, but I’ve never seen anything like this: 80% of bodies were tortured, including electrocuted, burned alive, limbs cut off, eyes gouged out and, again and again, the targeted rape of women and girls.

Captors referred to very young girls they kidnapped as “concubines.”

Hamas took at least 222 hostages from many nations, including America, into Gaza, where evidence has already emerged of continuing sexual abuse.

As someone who has dedicated my post-NBA career to ensuring people get the mental-health support they need, I cannot fathom the mental-health crisis this terrorist attack has inflicted on Israelis.

What’s happened in Israel isn’t war; it is inhumanity.

There were mass rapes so brutal they broke their victim’s pelvises — women, grandmothers, children.

A baby was cut out of a pregnant woman and beheaded; then the mother was beheaded.

This must be unequivocally condemned. 

Let’s now talk about what’s happening on the other side of the border, where I also know people who are living in fear after Hamas decided to put its own brutal agenda ahead of the interest of the Palestinian people. Gazans too are being terrorized by Hamas’ barbaric actions.

I know Palestinians who live in fear of those same terrorists, and we must have empathy for the children in Palestine who have been hurt.

We are all human, and empathy is an essential value of the human experience. 

We must also recognize there is no moral equivalence between terrorist killers and the innocents they destroy so brutally.

Everyone must have the courage to say this when mobs of antisemites are marching through America’s college campuses and the streets of cities around the world, chanting “gas the Jews” and tearing down pictures of kidnapped Israeli children.

As an activist myself, I know firsthand there is a better path: a path toward peace and love that does not start with justifying terrorizing innocent civilians.

Pro-Hamas rallies have taken place in my hometown of New York under the guise of promoting peace.

These rallies, unfortunately, have done nothing to promote peace; instead, they justify terror against innocent civilians.

The participants displayed a concerning lack of condemnation for Hamas.

While freedom of expression is crucial, it’s essential to distinguish between advocating for peace and supporting groups that refuse to condemn atrocities against innocent civilians.

Responsible activism should unequivocally denounce all forms of terrorism.

These rallies failed to live up to this basic standard.

If you can’t condemn harming innocents amidst horrific images of Jewish babies in cages, then you need to check yourself.

If you want to help Palestinians, the best way to support them is by first supporting tangible steps toward peace by freeing Gaza from Hamas and letting the Palestinian people decide their own future without being controlled by a repressive terrorist organization.

Free Gaza from Hamas and its injustice once and for all.

Only then will we have a chance at peace.

Metta World Peace, born Ronald William Artest Jr., is a former NBA player who played for 19 seasons and won an NBA championship with the Los Angeles Lakers. He is a staunch advocate for mental health, even auctioning his championship ring to benefit mental-health charities.

--

Reminder that concubines are sex-slaves, referred to euphemistically as "those whom your right hand possess."

https://quranx.com/Hadith/Muslim/USC-MSA/Book-8/Hadith-3432/

Abu Sa'id al-Khudri (Allah her pleased with him) reported that at the Battle of Hanain Allah's Messenger (ﷺ) sent an army to Autas and encountered the enemy and fought with them. Having overcome them and taken them captives, the Companions of Allah's Messenger (may peace te upon him) seemed to refrain from having intercourse with captive women because of their husbands being polytheists. Then Allah, Most High, sent down regarding that: " And women already married, except those whom your right hands possess (iv. 24)" (i. e. they were lawful for them when their 'Idda period came to an end).

https://quranx.com/4.24

And [also prohibited to you are all] married women except those your right hands possess. [This is] the decree of Allah upon you. And lawful to you are [all others] beyond these, [provided] that you seek them [in marriage] with [gifts from] your property, desiring chastity, not unlawful sexual intercourse. So for whatever you enjoy [of marriage] from them, give them their due compensation as an obligation. And there is no blame upon you for what you mutually agree to beyond the obligation. Indeed, Allah is ever Knowing and Wise.

https://askimam.org/public/question_detail/17032

One question that still remains is whether slavery still legally prevails anywhere in the Islamic world and whether it can be successfully implemented in this age… Firstly, the prisoners have to be captured in 'Jihaad' in the true sense of the word… According to Islamic Law, captive female prisoners are also part and parcel of the booty. One fifth of the booty has to be first distributed to the needy, orphans, etc. The remaining four-fifths should then be distributed among the soldiers who participated in the war. The distribution can only take effect after the booty is brought into Islamic territory. The Ameerul-Mu'mineen (Head of the Islamic State) remains the guardian of the female prisoners until he allocates them to the soldiers. Only after a soldier has been allotted a slave girl, and made the owner of her, will she become his lawful possession. After she spends a period called 'Istibraa', which is the elapse of one menstrual period, it becomes permissible for her owner to have relations with her.

Islamically, they're fair game by the terrorists.

--

I'm not surprised by Hamas brutality. But I was surprised by the scale of their attack. Not to this degree. Wiping out entire communities, messing with nuclear power, the most powerful country in the region, a country with a trauma, great trauma from the past, with a memory of the Holocaust and all the Nazis did in the past century.

They opened the gates of hell on the Palestinian people. This is how irresponsible this group of people are. They are willing to actually sacrifice many Palestinian children, the entire Palestinian people and use them as fuel to just achieve their ideological agendas, their religious agendas. They are careless. They don't care for the human life.

We have to separate between what so-called Palestinian cause and Hamas cause. Hamas cause is a sick one. It's coming from the pit of hell. And they need to be removed from power.

This is my message. As an ex-Hamas member, as a son of one of Hamas founders, that enough of this. If we don't stop them now, the next war is going to be deadlier. And only god knows what will happen next if Hamas is not finished as soon as possible.

[mikeo56]

Israel supporters are like, “No no you don’t understand, the side that’s killing babies and incinerating families and assassinating journalists and starving civilians and bombing cultural heritage sites and carpet bombing entire neighborhoods and driving an indigenous people off their land are the GOOD guys.”

❖

There is literally nothing Israel could do that its supporters wouldn’t defend. Try to fill in the blank in “Israel could _______ and people would defend it” with something that wouldn’t be true. Most of the insanely evil things you could put in that space are already actually being done. Genocide? They’re already doing that. Murdering babies? They’re already doing that. Killing thousands of children? Already doing that. Deliberately targeting and assassinating journalists, artists and scholars? Already doing that.

Israel supporters will defend any evil — literally any evil — as long as it is being perpetrated by their favorite regime. There are zero constraints of any kind, because Israel supporters are completely uninterested in morality. If they were, they wouldn’t be supporting one of the most immoral governments on this planet even after all it has done in the last two months.

Part of the problem is the widespread consensus that October 7 means Israel is justified in doing literally anything in response, no matter how heinous. Israel could exterminate the entire population of Gaza and its supporters would still be saying “WHAT ABOUT OCTOBER 7??”

❖

A new Israelis study found that Israel is killing civilians in Gaza at a significantly higher rate than civilians were killed in the world wars of the 20th century. Military analysts have said that the destruction in northern Gaza is comparable to the most aggressive World War II bombing campaigns in places like Dresden, Hamburg and Cologne.

US officials were reportedly shocked when Israeli officials indicated they were preparing to inflict civilian casualties in Gaza that would be reminiscent of world war horrors, and then, in typical Israeli fashion, they went and did even worse.

❖

Biden killing Ukraine peace negotiations and backing a genocide in Gaza are both worse than anything Donald Trump has ever done.

❖

Israel apologists often cite the fact that the majority of Jews support Israel to substantiate their ridiculous position that opposition to Israel is anti-semitic, but that statistic is not actually morally relevant or logically interesting. Any population that’s sufficiently saturated with propaganda and indoctrination will wind up mostly supporting the thing they’re being propagandized and indoctrinated into supporting; that’s the purpose of propaganda and indoctrination.

The majority of westerners subscribe to the mainstream worldview which supports western imperialism for exactly the same reason — because they were propagandized and indoctrinated into that worldview. This doesn’t mean western imperialism shouldn’t be ferociously opposed; it absolutely must be. Even if that puts you standing against the indoctrinated majority.

❖https://twitter.com/caitoz/status/1733652981399343420

❖

The funny thing about the claim that anti-Zionism is anti-semitism is that most Zionists aren’t even Jewish. The majority of them are Christians who hope all Jewish people go to Israel so that Jesus will return, then Jewish people get to either repent and convert to Christianity or go to hell. 

What that means is, in a very real and quantifiable way, most Zionists are actual anti-semites.

❖

It’s so surreal to get called the worst thing in the world for opposing the worst thing in the world. You oppose children being murdered by the thousands in Gaza and you’ll get accused of harboring the same prejudices that led to the Holocaust. It makes you feel you’re going mad.

❖

The US is sponsoring a relentless genocidal massacre that’s killing, crippling and tormenting innocents in the most horrific ways imaginable, and Americans are being persuaded to focus instead on a completely fictional epidemic of genocidal rhetoric against Jews at universities. 

And I do mean completely fictional — nothing of the sort is happening. It’s like pointing to a clip of Darth Vader destroying a planet in Star Wars to distract from the actual real life atrocities in Gaza.

The fake epidemic of genocidal chants on campus reminds me of the fake epidemic of Russian propaganda, when “Russian propaganda” was defined as “any criticism of US foreign policy”. Falsely define common pro-Palestine chants as calls to genocide Jews and you can then declare an epidemic of genocidal rhetoric.https://x.com/caitoz/status/1733230855878066673?s=20

It goes like this:

Step 1: Arbitrarily declare that common innocuous pro-Palestine chants are actually calls for genocide.

Step 2: Pretend there’s an emergency epidemic of university students calling for genocide on campus because they use those chants.

Step 3: Kill pro-Palestine speech on campus.

❖

Just spitballing here but maybe the most efficient way to prevent western youth from becoming radicalized against Israel is not to censor the internet and kill free speech at universities but to make Israel stop murdering thousands of innocent people.

[owtfg4ia]

The moral bankruptcy of this generation brings me great despair. Despite the great amount of information out there, never have the highly educated appeared more idiotic. Instead of reading reliable sources of history and seeking to discover truth, many are happy to just jump on the misinformation bandwagon perpetuated online. Maybe books are too thick, too dry to sustain these dumbed down pretend brainiacs who are only used to TikTok, YouTube shorts— their primary source of information.

Spend time reading and you’ll see how history itself doesn’t support the rhetoric pushed by one group against another. It isn’t rocket science. It just requires a real desire to see for yourself what has been recorded for our reference and understanding. However I guess whilst it has become morally affront to question the gender claims of a men who claims he is a woman, it has become morally affront too to call Hamas a terrorist organisation. We can see this from the rush by key news outlets refusing to call them terrorists, choosing instead to call them ‘militants’ or ‘freedom fighters’…

We all know from reading the mission statement of these brutal men who are extremists, that they want to establish an Islamic Caliphate where Jews and Christians have no part in, and anyone who does not accept Islam as their religion will be targeted. Not sure about you, but whilst I’m ok about living with moderate Muslims, one cannot possibly tolerate the hate and threats voiced out by their extremist brothers and sisters of the faith.

———

Listening to the heads of some of the most prestigious universities in America speak about how calling for the genocide of Jews is only considered harassment based on context is RIDICULOUS. The word GENOCIDE and that it targets a specific race of people (it could be blacks, whites, asians and it would just be as appalling) is already context enough, intention enough.

In their rush to please the woke masses, in their fear and perpetuation of the most ridiculous cancel culture, the heads of the universities and the heads of states in many countries are afraid to call what is wrong. Nothing can justify rape. Absolutely nothing.

Freedom fighters, that is what they claim to be, should not even be raping anyone since their priority should be military. Yet we read accounts of pelvis shattered by brutal gang rape, sexual assaults, subjecting young hostage victims (young boys) to watch over and over again the massacre and rape that took place on Oct 7. How does one justify this act of cruelty and evil as being acceptable?

Fight if you must, but this is dirty, cruel, vile, vicious, corrupt… and done in the name of their religion? I have Muslim friends in my part of the world and I’m thankful that is not what they were taught, but I wonder if they struggle with reconciling the truth that they have been told and the actual truth that is coming out from hostages right now… or perhaps they are susceptible enough to believe all the world is a stage, and the victims are all actors.

This whole war plays out like a larger version of the court room drama between Amber Heard and Johnny Depp. The Amber Heard of Gaza gas lighting the Jewish Johnny Depp.

The brutal rape and gang rape of innocent civilian women and girls who are murdered before, after or even in the midst of the act itself sickens me. Some pregnant women had their stomachs cut open, their babies torn out of their wombs and shot… these scenes remind me of the atrocities of WWII. Read what the Japanese did during the Japanese occupation… this is basically history repeating itself today…

S

[eretzyisrael]

Stopping Iran

There are two ways to stop Iran from getting the bomb.

One is to apply pressure short of war. That would involve squeezing the regime economically, isolating it from as much of the world’s commerce as possible, while at the same time strengthening and supporting its domestic opposition. At the same time, sabotage, assassinations, and other operations could delay the nuclear program and weaken the regime. At some point it will break, or the opposition will become strong enough to break it.

This was the program of Donald Trump’s administration, working together with Israel and other players in the Middle East. But Joe Biden’s administration has scrapped that program, and chosen to try (or to appear to try) to persuade the Iranian regime by removing pressure, rather than increasing it. This strengthens the Iranian regime, allows it to build up the proxy forces that serve as a deterrent against attack from the neighboring countries who are directly threatened by its expansionism, and at best can only slightly delay its progress toward nuclear armament – and even this is doubtful, since the regime showed no compunctions about cheating on the agreements it made with the Obama Administration, long before Trump took the US out of the deal.

The new American policy goes against the basic principles of negotiating. Giving up leverage up front for nothing in return is stupid. And it’s not as if the previous Iran deal doesn’t provide evidence for the failure of this approach. Biden’s administration wasn’t forced to re-make Obama’s mistakes. They could have simply continued the “maximum pressure” campaign. It’s simplistic to say that they were compelled to blindly oppose everything that Trump had done, in every area. They aren’t that dumb.

I won’t try to explain the motives of the Biden Administration. They are a mystery to me. Possibilities range from unbelievable naïveté and ignorance to an explicit desire to see the Middle East dominated by a nuclear Iran. The latter case also implies a desire to see a Middle East without a Jewish state, and there is no doubt that there are those in the administration who favor that. But regardless of the reasons, it is fully clear that the new American policy will not stop Iran.

Despite a notable decline in military strength in recent decades, there is no other country with the economic muscle, the global reach and influence of the USA. The path of “pressure short of war” requires America to be on board. If they aren’t, the only alternative is for Israel to stop Iran herself by military means. The best that can be expected from the US in that case will be non-interference, and even that is doubtful.

But this would not be an “operation” like the attacks on the nuclear reactors in Iraq and Syria. It would be a very serious and involved campaign, which could rise to the level of regional war. Iran has built up proxy forces armed with numerous rockets and missiles in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, and Gaza. It has missile forces on its own soil. It has been supplying its proxies with accurate missiles and kits to convert unguided rockets into highly accurate ones, despite Israeli interventions to prevent that. It has developed guided drones that were used effectively against Saudi oil facilities in 2019 and in March of this year.

If Israel were to attack the Iranian nuclear installations – and there are numerous, dispersed, and well-defended targets that would have to be hit – it would also be necessary to suppress retaliation from the various proxy forces. The rocket launchers in Lebanon and Gaza are embedded in civilian areas, and are capable of firing very large numbers of weapons in a short time, which can overwhelm anti-missile systems like Iron Dome. There is also a greater number of highly accurate missiles, which are best eliminated before they can be launched.

This combination means that Israel will have no choice but to employ massive firepower, which will be catastrophic for the people in the affected areas. There is expected to be ground warfare in southern Lebanon and even northern Israel. Hezbollah intends to make incursions into Israeli territory and to take civilian hostages. An insurrection in Judea and Samaria is also a possibility. Such a three or four front war would be very costly, both for Israel and for the countries that Iran has used as proxies, especially Lebanon, which is already failing as a state as a result of being parasitized by Hezbollah.

At the same time, there would be a massive propaganda assault against Israel, similar that which was waged against us at the time of the last Gaza conflict. The UN, the EU, countless NGOs, the international Left, and much of the academic and media world will line up to provide a stream of atrocity stories, exaggerations, and context-free accusations, all intended to justify intervention by the international community, the embargo of weapons shipments, and so forth.

What would the US do? Judging by the cast of characters in the Biden Administration, I doubt that we could expect even a pretense of support, despite the fact that we would be doing America and the rest of the civilized world a favor.

It’s easy to say – I’ve said it myself – that war is inevitable and we should get it over with as soon as possible, at a time and in a fashion of our choosing. But that doesn’t change the fact that we would certainly lose people, soldiers and civilians, and have to absorb a great deal of infrastructure damage even if everything goes according to plan. If we go to war it will probably be one of our most painful wars, especially on the home front. It’s easy to see why our decision-makers have chosen to defer acting until the last possible moment, when there is absolutely no other option.

In the meantime, our PM has told the Chief of Staff to develop plans for carrying out an attack on the Iranian nuclear project, including the suppression of rocket and missile fire from our neighbors. I am sure they will be characterized by unconventional tactics and maybe new weapons.

One wonders why Biden’s people can’t see that what they are doing is promoting precisely the opposite of the peace and stability that they claim to want – or if they do see that, why they are doing it.

Abu Yehuda

[permian-tropos]

essay which eventually makes an argument about which fandom discourse is good political praxis and which is ungood

I know it’s crass to connect inane fandom crap to real world atrocities so to be just minimally crass: recent real world atrocities have indeed made me think of inane fandom crap I’ve seen, but then I wondered what the right way to discuss the parallels even is. Stories resemble reality and things fans say diegetically about fiction (like, the thing we all do where we phrase it like it’s real) can resemble things people say about reality. Diegetic opinions can resemble shitty real world opinions. And we argue constantly about what to do about it.

I’m feeling fucking pissed about some real world opinions, but I don’t think dumb Star Wars fandom arguments technically cause the real world opinions I’m super fucking pissed about, the way people think they do. So this isn’t about that. (spoilers it eventually is about that but I’ll say it’s not for now)

I want to argue that discourse should be about examining every diegetic opinion that feels possible. Everything from baseless nonsense, to things you agree with, to things you are comfortable agreeing to disagree about, to opinions canon tries to slip by unquestioned, like, “there’s nothing to be done about the fact that Coruscant has billions of poor people buried underground like a wealth inequality layer cake”. 

I’m reframing the inflammatory “your diegetic opinions describe your real world ones” or the moral panicky “your diegetic opinions will become your real ones”: The more possible it feels that you’d find fans with the diegetic opinion, the more valid your society/culture treats the real-world counterpart.

So I’m angry, because our society treats horrible opinions about state violence now being applied to the recent Gaza massacre as valid, and it has treated them as valid for a long time, and it’s reflected in some diegetic opinions on the Jakku massacre. Opinions which I now am extra disgusted by. But the people with those opinions might not have the same bad opinions about the real world; it doesn’t work like that. I want the discourse to stop focusing on that.

The ease with which people could, if not justify, minimize, the awfulness of Kylo killing of the Jakku villagers, shows some culturally non-taboo things to say about state violence (“they were fighting back, the villagers were protecting the Resistance/were armed by them, maybe they weren’t a threat in that moment but they clearly would have threatened the Order if they’d had the means, and the Resistance was wrong to use them as a shield”) and its actors (”Kylo didn’t really want to do it, he had to prove he was tough in front of Phasma, he’s desensitized to this because everyone in the Order does it”).

Diegetic opinion: What Kylo did was not excusable. It was completely brutal and unnecessary. The villagers had been disarmed, Kylo killed not just the men combatants but the women noncombatants and children too, and the villagers fought back in the first place because the Order was imposing entirely illegitimate authority. Kylo did not have the right to use military force to get a map to find a man who was hiding because didn’t want to fight, to enact personal revenge because that man held a weapon over his head for a hot second. What would that even be, a cosmically strained stand-your-ground defense? Anyway it was definitely an evil thing to do. 

And those opinions aren’t super radical so they’re treated by society as valid too. As people have pointed out, though, when “war crime good” and “war crime bad” are treated as equally valid, it actually favors war crimes. People have to waste time justifying not doing war crimes. War crimes can be done before facing the court of public opinion, and then the noise of the debate can go on until the next war crime happens. And the same is true of “racism good”/”racism bad” and so on. 

But okay now I want to make an even more complicated-ass point about villain stanning. The more prevalent the garbage stan opinion is, the more support it gives to the overarching stan opinion: “this villain is a normal person”.

Cause I think there are three strains of fan apologia:

1) I forgive it because it’d be excusable in real life (not always wrong! but with the Jakku massacre it does indicate offensively crap politics) 

2) I forgive it because it’s not real and enjoying the thing doesn’t significantly affect my moral judgement or anyone else’s (basically always valid when true)

And the one that intrigues me, 

3) I forgive it not because it’d be excusable in real life but because a normal person could excuse it

If you’re excusing actions the narrative doesn’t present as wrong, the person you’re imagining as normal isn’t the character but the writer. Or, using Death of the Author, some hypothetical authorial intent -- but only if it’s possible to conceive of a writer with this intent. And it’s only palatable when the projected (if not actual) author is a decent person. Their opinions might be bad but it’s from a failing of society, not the individual. This is what so many of us use for the HanLeia kiss in ESB to avoid hating Han for what would count as sexual assault IRL, or to avoid deeply loathing the writers or the movie. 

Also if you project opinions onto a narrative that either aren’t there or aren’t provably intentional or explicit, and construct the hypothetical authorial intent behind it and find it unforgivably abnormal, and then decide the actual writer must be as well, that’s called Rian Johnson Retire Bitching. 

Imagining the writer as normal is one way we can forgive fictional bad behavior, if we think the writer intended it to be excusable. If we think they might not, we can turn to another version -- the character excuses their own behavior, and under certain circumstances we believe a normal person could make those excuses, so the character can be normal (we empathize with normal people, we want them to redeem themselves).

Type 3 stanning arguments about the actors of state violence (eg. what people argue the bottom line of Ben Solo’s moral capacity is), show that we think decent people can be actors in state violence. With the justifications people make, Kylo Ren could technically be a “normal” person because “normal” people can be convinced of all these justifications. And you know what, I’d say that’s true. Nearly every human is born with a healthy ability to develop good morals, so societies where tons of people condone or excuse atrocities do not have abnormally evil people. They have abnormally evil culture.

But the more people repeat the justifications as valid, the more it shows that Kylo is normal. Kylo has a lot of fans, and if enough of them express these diegetic beliefs, it’s sort of evident that “normal” people can have them. The part where I think fiction does end up maybe affecting reality is that diegetic opinions are treated as more potent if the real-world counterparts are good ones. And it’s moral purists and antis and ~discoursers~ that keep encouraging this perspective. 

So the antis give the stans a reason to present their diegetic opinions with real world opinions. Or to defend them without talking about real world opinions. To show that lots of people can have this opinion. Normal people. Good people, decent people. People who, even if they don’t have all the right morals, could have them in a healthy society. But they’re not really clarifying that these aren’t the right morals. Even people in the kylux fandom slipped into this from time to time despite a big push to make “we know they’re evil” the motto.

It’s tempting to use a more potent argument. Push the fandom Overton Window. “Kylo killed those villagers and it was evil but I can imagine him justifying it in ways that show he’s capable of good, and I want to see him become good” is just not as potent as “it was a wartime execution and if the stormtroopers are people maybe the villagers are also bad for killing them” when it comes to making people more sympathetic towards Kylo. 

Thanks to the anti framework of “your faves must be unproblematic” (nice work folks :/) and thanks to people who care too much about their problematic faves and don’t pay attention to the real world, diegetic opinions can end up implicitly encouraging people to push real world opinions for the sake of protecting Your Misunderstood Cinnamon Woobie who you’re very emotionally invested in but doesn’t actually exist, and that is kind of how I’m seeing fandom team up with bad politics when it doesn’t need to. Your Evil Woobie Boi can represent something good for you and you can express this and enjoy yourself. I have an evil woobie boi. He’s a great creative outlet. I absolutely stan the institution of loving villains. 

Which means we have to a) get rid of the purity wank framework and b) prioritize getting good opinions through ongoing interrogation of the real world and not expecting that we can indirectly absorb wokeness through media crafted to convey only the right messages. 

To ensure that people absorb those messages you have to get them to take all messages in media as correct. If your idea of media criticism is, when you get down to it, “criticize the things I think are wrong until they’re all gone and then make fiction tell people the right way to think”, your logical end goal is a society completely uncritical of media. A benevolent dictatorship of woke fiction. Forgive me if I don’t find that so reassuring. 

And you know what? Because so many normal people (like me, before I discoursed myself) toy with this dystopic underlying ideology, our society clearly treats the idea of a benevolent media dictatorship as valid. 

A creepy realization, but look how we got there with the “what opinions feel normal?” method. That’s why I think this model of discourse is one that actually gets us somewhere.