#pro Palestine movement problems

[amaditalks]

There are four possibilities for the people chanting “globalize the intifada” and “intifada everywhere” and none of them are any good.

They don’t care that they’re calling for mass terrorist violence and deaths because they don’t care who lives or dies. (The nihilist option.)

They assume that anyone who’d be killed in such violence deserves it and haven’t considered that it could easily be someone they claim to care about. (The true terrorist option.)

They’re willing to sacrifice the people they care about for “the movement.” (The true terrorist plus volunteering others for martyrdom option.)

They’re happy to chant whatever the loudest person tells them to, and they have no idea what the intifada even is. (The ignorant lemming option.)

People have to do better.

[hazel2468]

Kay you know that long ass post I just reblogged? With the absolutely unhinged antisemitic person tweets?

I saw someone in the notes being like “as a member of the Pro Palestine camp, we do not claim them!” And I’m like…

That’s the fucking problem. Because they ARE YOU. That kind of unapologetic antisemitic racist conspiracy? Is RAMPANT in Pro Palestine spaces. Online and in the real world. And at BEST people just ignore it and let it happen and at worst they AGREE with it.

You can’t just “they’re not with us” with this when I have yet to see a SINGLE fucking post about being Pro Palestine that doesn’t have someone in the comments devolving into antisemitic bullshit. They ARE with you- they are constantly there. And you guys need to fucking clean house because at this point? Idgaf if you say you “don’t claim them”, because there are enough of them that your movement is not only entirely unsafe for Jews, but at least 75% of the shit I see posted in the name of being Pro Palestinian is actually just antisemitic as fuck.

[fairuzfan]

When's the anti-pro-Palestinian movement going to admit they have an islamophobia/anti-Arab/anti-palestinian problem

[thishazeleyeddemon]

You don't need to be antisemitic to be pro-Palestine.

do you know what that means? Do you know how to spot antisemitism when you see it?

[perkwunos]

But there’s a cruel reality behind the decision to track right: The campaign, once it hitched its wagon to Biden’s policy of unqualified support for genocide in Gaza, really had no other choice. In 2020, the Biden campaign tentatively rode the progressive wave of the George Floyd protests, anger about Trump’s racist border policies, Covid activism, and anti-war protests against Saudi Arabia’s destruction of Yemen to energize the Democratic Party base to defeat Trump. It was, in retrospect, mostly lip service, and certainly no one at the time thought Biden a firebrand progressive. But the broader theme of the campaign was that everyone would have a seat at the table, even if the plate would most likely end up being empty.

Harris made no such pretensions, because any strategy that played to similar themes would have had to address the elephant in the room: the Democratic Party’s ​“ironclad” support for Israel’s elimination of a people in whole or in part. And this simply would not have worked. One can’t really bank on activist energy, youth turnout, and base-mobilizing when those involved — while canvassing together, or running phone banks at each others apartments, or getting drinks afterwards — have to awkwardly address the fact of genocide and their candidate’s support for it. This isn’t to say there was no activist or youth energy in the campaign — clearly there was. But those in charge quickly decided against making this their central theme and vote-gathering strategy, given the uncomfortable questions that would naturally arise from campaigning in these spaces. So Liz Cheney and her negative-2 favorables it was. 

Countless pro-Democratic Party pundits tried to warn Harris. Polls were commissioned. The Uncommitted Movement very politely, and well within the bounds of loyal party politics, begged Harris to change course. But she refused. The risk, to her, was worth sticking to the unshakable commitment to ​“eliminating Hamas” no matter how many dead Palestinian children it required, or the degree to which images and reports of these dead children would fuel cynicism and create an opening for Trump to win. 

... Turning every party advocate into a dead-eyed trolley problem expert triaging which genocide was morally preferable may have made cold logical sense, but it was hardly an inspiring message. Making it less compelling was that, by and large, it was not a position emanating from Palestinians themselves, as virtually every major Palestinian organization and the sole Palestinian-American in Congress, Rashida Tlaib, refused to endorse Harris.

[germiyahu]

This phenomenon of so called Leftists throwing up their hands at the tiniest pushback, or criticism, or suggestions on how to not actively be antisemitic needs to be studied. Because what do you mean instead of just accepting that an antisemitic troll claiming to be on your side said "Zionist Occupied Government" and denouncing this and moving on with your life... you double down, defend, and deflect. It's classic DARVO, but like, when people are very patiently and slowly explaining how this is a literal KKK Nazi white supremacist fascist phrase, it's not enough? You don't care?

It's clear that the "pro Palestinian" left have been fully infiltrated by fascists, both Western fascists who have always been nakedly antisemitic and are finding the perfect avenue to mainstream their Jew hatred... and Islamist fascists who simply never cared that Jews are a global minority group that has faced oppression and violence in multiple different continents, they don't care about social justice or fundamental human rights. It's not part of their intellectual tradition.

The "pro" Palestine movement has been captured by people who have decided that a) Palestine is emblematic of all of the problems of the world, and that b) every Jew is worth sacrificing to correct these problems, because c) if Palestine is emblematic, aren't Zionists responsible for everything then?

Now the prevailing thought is that someone should be able to call for violence against Jews, someone should be able to harass or even assault Jewish Americans, because bringing it up, complaining, taking a stand, that's the equivalent of telling them you like children blowing up, you like hundreds of thousands of people being homeless and food insecure, you like prisoners being detained in Guantanamo conditions without due process, where anyone can torture them as revenge even if there's no proof they're an actual Hamas member.

Is there a reason they argue like Republican Fox News addicts? I guess that kind of explains how easily the "movement" is falling apart to literal fascists.

They say "nobody cares about your hurt feelings ZIONIST!" if you mention literal stabbings and firebombs. They say "but we should talk about how pervasively synagogues indoctrinate the vast majority of Jewish people with Zionist ideology." They roll their eyes because "don't you know Palestinians are suffering 200x what these cushy American Jews could even imagine?" Facts don't care about your feelings uwu~

But at the end of the day, they care a lot about their own feelings, much more so than the facts. They feel entitled to hate all Jews all over the planet, to secretly revel in antisemitic rhetoric and acts, to want to take out their impotent frustration and despair on any and all Jews they'd like. This is very much about their feelings and not any Jewish people's feelings.

They've been waiting for this, or many of them never cared at all. Now it's finally Leftist to quote Nazis and openly make fun of Jews who are getting stabbed. Now it's finally Leftist to call for incinerating all of Israel and maybe we should consider a lot of Diaspora Jews too, you know they can't be trusted! Oh but don't forget to honor the victims of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, innocent civilians should never have been targeted by America's vicious imperial violence!

The fact that it took this substantial contingent of watermelon twitter less than a year to go full mask off like this... is that revealing or troubling?

[opencommunion]

tell me you've never actually set foot in a "pro-palestine space" without telling me: - "the pro-palestine movement has an antisemitism problem" - "it's like a fandom" / "it's a trend" / "it's not strategic" - "why does no one say decolonize the US"

[just-a-queer-fanboy]

Help a Palestinian Family

This is Mohi: the brother of @wafaaresh. Both of their gofundme's are hosted by a friend in Baltimore, and both accounts have been vetted. Mohi is only 23 and is currently suffering from malnutrition and hepatitis due to the current bombardment of Gaza. Their mother suffers from chronic illnesses that they cannot find treatment or urgently needed surgery for. They lack access to food and clean, drinkable water.

As I write this, not even a third of his goal of 31,000 dollars has been reached, and Wafaa's goal of 100,000 has a mere tenth raised. They both lost their home, a good chunk of their family, and have been displaced over 10 times.

The high in Gaza is nearly 90 Fahrenheit for the next week, with 70% humidity. There is no shade. There is no drinkable water. Aid is being blocked from entering.

This is Wafa's new gofundme.

Note: She had to make a new campaign after issues with the old one. There are barely any donations at the moment.

Wafa is 29 and reached out to me to ask me to boost her campaign, and since I cannot donate, I am making this post to promote both her and her brother's fundraisers.

They are both young adults who had so many ambitions and hopes before the attacks began. And there is still hope for them to escape live freely, like every human deserves to live.

If you are able to spare a few bucks, even a donation of 5 or 10 dollars helps. I hope this post finds people who are able to donate. Nobody deserves to live like this.

(I recently learned of their sister, Fidaa. I will continue editing this post if I find gofundme's for other family members, so people don't have to wade through a million different reblogs to find them.)

This is Fidaa @fidaa-family2 , she is Wafaa and Mohi's sister. She is 29 and a mother of 2: Sila, her 2 year old, and Muhammed Amr, who is only 2 months old. Imagine going through this trauma at 2 years old, imagine going through this at 2 months old. Imagine giving birth in these conditions, where the healthcare system has been so destroyed they cannot even count the dead. It's unimaginable for many of us, but for them, it is their daily life.

They live in Mawasi Khan Younis, South of Gaza. She and her children are malnourished and have little to no access to medicine, especially what is necessary post-partum, let alone necessary for a malnourished baby!

She has raised a little over a third of her 10,000 dollar goal.

If this post reaches enough people who can and do donate, their family can live freely. No bombs, no disease, no thirst, no hunger. Their children can grow up happily, the way all children should. And I do believe that it is possible.

Again, please donate if it is at all possible. No donation is too small, nor too big. Everything counts.

**I'd like to add a note here not about the family, but about Palestine and Israel. I am not versed enough to decide whether there should be a two state solution, one state and which one, whatever. I'm 15, my opinions do not do jack shit. All I will say is innocent people are dying just for being palestinian and I'm against that.

I also know the current pro palestine movement has a major problem with antisemitism, which I previously engaged with due to ignorance and ignoring dogwhistles. I have since learned and am working to avoid doing so again, as I know I shared harmful content in an attempt to uplift a separate group, and that was wrong of me.

For now, all I can really say is Palestinians don't deserve to die, the IDF has committed war crimes, and that is not the fault of Jewish people. It's the fault of the Israeli government and military, not the citizens or people of the same ethnicity or religion. I won't tolerate bigotry towards either group on my page.**

[ch4liz4rd-jpeg]

my biggest gripe with the pro palestinian movement is the lying. you can have empathy and feel remorse for gazans without lying and peddling every antisemetic trope in the book

you can realise that palestinian arabs did not kindly welcome jews who made aliyah before and after the shoah, they are not indigenous or the canaanites, they have been violent against israelis and jews, a lot of them do support hamas, the nakba was a war started by palestinians that they lost to israel, the palestinian national identity is reactionary to the israeli national identity, palestinians are not genetically distinct grom other arabs in the middle east, palestine is literally a colonial name given to the land by the romans to mock the jews living there to sever our connection to the land and STILL have empathy for palestinians. you can realise that they arent a perfect innocent victim and still have empathy for them. the source of their suffering isnt israel or jews, its the antisemitic and imperialistic goals of islamist leaders AND STILL. FEEL. REMORSE

if you need to distort the history of this land and its people and use antisemitic tropes in order to support palestine, you are the fucking problem!!!!! arabs are to the middle east what white people are to the west, and they are not victims just be they face oppression if they live in the west. go speak to any person from the indigenous populations of the middle east and levant and they can tell u all abt what islamism and arabs have done to them snd their families if u refuse to believe us sneaky lying je- i mean zionists. oh wait, its gonna be so hard to do that bc the arab world is doing everything in its power to kill them all

tl dr, you dont need to lie to have empathy for palestinians. you can accept the dirty past of palestinians (just as many israelis still love this country despite it flaws, less then pretty history and incompetent, corrupt government) and still empathise and believe in their self determination alongside jewish and israeli self determination. the need to lie, distort and discredit the jewish and israeli story shows your true (antisemetic) colors

(this is a rant from feb that u put on my insta story, thought it should be seen here)

[jewish-kulindadromeus]

A friend asked what they can do to fight antisemitism, from the perspective of wanting to free Palestine and thinking that is a more pressing issue. My response was, I feel, good enough to repost here. Please read it:

"I think the main thing here is that these are not exclusive issues. Netanyahu wants more Jews to move to Israel for similar reasons; so he benefits from Jews feeling unsafe worldwide. Any feasible pro Palestine activism requires active and intentional anti-antisemitism

I also want to point out that Americans who do not have native ancestry or weren't brought here by force are settler colonialists, with much less of a claim to the land than any Jew has to the levant, and the genocide of native Americans is ongoing. Americans have more of a responsibility to land back at home, no matter how pressing the situation across the ocean is.

Another thing is that many countries are at fault for the plight of Palestinians, not just the USA and Israel, though that’s the dominant narrative. Many neighboring countries refuse to allow refugees or provide real help. Egypt especially deserves to be criticized.

Finally, and this is the hard part: our society (western) was built on a foundation of antisemitism. It goes back to ancient Egypt and Ancient Greece. This hatred is the dna that runs through Christianity and Islam because it is how they defined themselves and every country that is a majority people from those religions. Colonialism itself is a direct descendant of supercessionism from both religions, and racism directly grew out of the racial laws of Spain that came from the inquisition and the antisemitism that caused it. If you want to fix anything - including the situation in Palestine - you need to pay attention to antisemitism and fix it and work on it. The pro Palestine movements primary problem is its antisemitism - many slogans have either the direct or indirect meaning of “kill all Jews”, and serve as dogwhistles. And this goes beyond even that - the current waves of transphobia are intimately tied with antisemitism. The hatred that defines so much of our society was born of antisemitism.

If you want to fix anything, at all, you need to get at this root and pull it up. It’s hard, but it’s necessary. There’s a reason progressive movements keep falling short or outright failing, and it’s from ignoring the centrality of antisemitism."

And that's why you should care, even if it never seems particularly pressing. Which, for the record, it is pressing - if you can't tell, it's because you aren't Jewish.

[deaddee-anime-brownfanlady]

I wish every single Free and Pro Palestine activist to deeply kiss my Black Ass and go to HELL with their performative nonsense fake activism.

All of ya'll so-called Pro Palestine people are so full of total horseshit and are nothing but a bunch of radicalized brainwashed extremists idiots whose parents should've had each and every single one of ya'll aborted.

FUCK ya'll people and your extremist Death Cult of a so-called movement which hasn't helped a single Palestinian or Gazan.

Trump literally ran on evoking visas and deporting immigrants who protested for Palestine.

He said it, bragged about it, and his supporters cheered. I cannot for the life of me understand why people are shocked now? Scared now?

He told you who he was months ago. How could yall be this irresponsible?

Did you think it was just a little joke? It was a chuckle? That man never lied once on that campaign trail.

[unsolicited-opinions]

Ahmed Fouad Alkhatib writes on Twitter about Secretary Blinken's NYT interview:

The "pro-Palestine" movement's role in prolonging the war on Gaza: Though many are angry with Secretary Blinken’s responses during his interview with the New York Times about Gaza, some of the points he shared are absolutely salient and accurate. I have said this time and again and received immense backlash for doing so: Hamas’s war strategy, statements, behavior, and goals regularly shift and oscillate based on international public opinion, the actions of the “pro-Palestine” solidarity movement, and political statements by world governments, leaders, and institutions against Israel’s war. To be clear, I’m not in any capacity saying I endorse the horrendous war that Israel’s been waging on Gaza, killing a large number of civilians (including my family) and failing to achieve strategic and lasting results 15 months later. However, Hamas refused to engage in pragmatic negotiations to end the war it started, pulled back several times from closing a ceasefire/hostage deal, and thought that mass civilian casualties would delegitimize Israel and force it to end the war. Many are uncomfortable with Secretary Blinken’s remarks because he shed light on the reality that “pro-Palestine” rhetoric and pressure on Israel has inevitably or perhaps indirectly resulted in a strengthening of Hamas’s position and the overall worsening of the situation for Palestinians in Gaza. I have said time and again that even if folks wanted to attack and criticize Israeli actions, they should call upon the Islamist group to release hostages and negotiate and off-ramp from the war to implement political transformation. Instead, the “pro-Palestine” and international solidarity movements completely ignored Hamas’s criminality against Palestinians and Israelis alike while failing to promote pragmatic, realistic pathways forward to save the most Palestinian lives and make it clear that Hamas’s actions are unpopular, unsupported, and condemned. Secretary Blinken is right on the money with his remarks. The “pro-Palestine” movements across the world after October 7 bear a significant responsibility for prolonging this war and directly contributing to the massive suffering of Palestinians in the coastal enclave. This dereliction of duty delegitimizes almost the entirety of the premise upon which current “pro-Palestine” activism is built. Take a step back and never, ever speak for, over, or on behalf of the Palestinian people!

Haviv Rettig Gur says he agrees:

I agree with Ahmed. We might assess the war differently, but we assess the future the same. When the dust settles, when the rebuilding begins, the old truths everyone likes to ignore will reassert themselves. We'll be back at square one, with the same problem as before. Israel can't rule the Palestinians for all time, nor can the war ever end as long as Palestinian ideological factions like Hamas consistently undermine every attempt at peace-making. Anyone who doesn't understand how catastrophic Hamas has been to the Palestinian cause is of no use to the Palestinian cause. 90% of Israeli Jews now tell pollsters that the fundamental impulse of the Palestinian national movement is to annihilate them. Imagine for a moment that I personally would like to see Palestinian independence in my lifetime. What am I supposed to do with the reality that that statistic describes? How do I urge my fellow Israelis to once again ante up in a game that they have learned from repeated bitter failure - and from Hamas's own consistent rhetoric - is meant to bring about their destruction? And Hamas did that. It was Hamas (with some help from Arafat) that convinced even most progressive Israelis, through explicit word and endless bloody deeds, that withdrawal or compromise would only bring more bloodshed. As long as Israeli Jews believe that, believe what Hamas tells them, they will remain immune to the moral emotions of foreigners. This is the profound folly at the heart of the pro-Palestinian movement. It wants to pressure Israelis to withdraw while Hamas tells Israelis that it will come for their kids from any inch of land they abandon. The pro-Palestinian movement has not yet noticed that it and Hamas are sending Israelis opposite messages, making opposite demands, and so canceling each other out in the Israeli psyche. And it is Palestinians, always Palestinians, who are the first and greatest victims of this folly. Even their defenders are mostly just corralling them into that same old trap. If you can't separate the Palestinian cause from Hamas's cause, or, indeed, if you share Hamas's yearning to see us destroyed, then you're no defender of Palestine. You are one of its destroyers.

[xclowniex]

I can't believe this is a radical opinion in these current times.

If a part of your group is being violent towards jews, physically or emotionally or chanting for violence, and the group as a whole does not call those people out and prevent antisemitism and instead ignores them, tries to say they aren't really apart of the group or tries to sweep them under the rug, then the whole group has a problem with antisemitism.

Ignoring and sweeping antisemitism under the rug means that the group does not view it as a problem.

If you do not prevent or call out antisemitism, it means the group is fine with it existing in the same spaces you do.

If you truly do not want antisemitism in pro palestine movements, you will do everything to prevent and stop it from existing in those spaces, same for any groups. If you do not, you are fine with it existing in pro palestine spaces.

[psychotrenny]

I wonder how long until all the sort of social infrastructure built up around Western Liberal support for Palestine, all the "river to the sea" instagram infographic brand of activism, gets turned around and used to justify and support some sort of Imperialist intervention the next time there's an international crises and the US is backing people who aren't openly and proudly evil. You can also ready see people appropriating the language of Pro-Palestinian activism to manufacture consent for US intervention in South America; all that "Eyes on Venezuela" type shit. Like the use of charitable NGOs to assist Imperialism isn't anything new, but it would be especially painful to witness an ostensibly anti-Colonial movement get exploited like that. I guess that's the problem with unprincipled support; it might be good enough to have but without a solid ideological basis then there's no telling how long it will last.

Like it's easy to come to the conclusion that Israel must be opposed; their citizens are constantly posting about their proud participation in genocide for fucks sake! But it's going to take a bare minimum of intellectual rigour to figure out your stance on any issues that isn't so cartoonishly obvious. Like instead of basing their attitudes and actions on any actual analysis of the situation in Palestine and the actors involved, for so many liberals their pro-Palestinian sentiment is nothing more than a kneejerk reaction to whoever they think is killing the least babies. Which makes them unlikely to take the right side when the baby-killers aren't posting it on Tik Tok.

[notaplaceofhonour]

the problem with the slogan “nobody is illegal on stolen land” is that it leaves the door wide open for all the same dehumanizing rhetoric & violence to continue to be used against migrants & refugees as long as you believe the land is yours by right

this is not theoretical. it is exactly the logic used within the Pro-Palestine movement to paint Jewish refugees who fled pogroms & the Holocaust to Mandatory Palestine as invaders & colonizers because they entered the land “illegally”, to justify the Arab Revolt & other acts of anti-Jewish violence by Palestinians, to demand Jews leave the land, & paint any attempt by Israel to secure its border as inherently racist, all under the banner of “nobody is illegal on stolen land”

indigineity is a non-factor in the morality & legality of mistreating migrants & refugees. the wrongness of violence against foreigners, draconic border policies, and mass deportations stands on its own; it is not dependent on whether the land is stolen or not.

if you’re trying to say “nobody should be illegal” you can just say that. it’s less wordy & harder for blood-and-soil nationalists to co-opt.

[mylight-png]

The "Free Palestine" movement is genocidal. Straight up. It's not just a few select slogans they use or some fringe members.

The very name of the movement is genocidal.

I had a conversation with my former roommates last semester where they refused to understand why "Free Palestine" in and of itself as a statement is a problem.

To them, it's a liberation movement. But the first issue arises when we ask who or what is being liberated.

What, in modern geographical terms, is Palestine? Where is Palestine? Who is the ruling party of Palestine?

Anyone with even a bit of knowledge would realize that this is a trick question. There isn't any country actually called Palestine.

When people refer to Palestinians, they typically talk about the people either in Gaza or the West Bank, which are two separate entities with two separate governments.

So who are we supposed to be freeing? Gaza, which has its own government in the form of Hamas? Or the West Bank, which has the PA as its governing group? (By the way, the PA has this little thing called pay-for-slay I suggest you look into, but that'd be a post for another time.)

The actual term "Palestine" most commonly is used to refer to the entire area of where Israel, Gaza, and the West Bank are located.

Which brings me to my main point. When people call to "Free Palestine" they aren't calling for a two-state solution. Identically to their call for "from the river to the sea", this slogan calls for the complete destruction of Israel.

A lot of people have already spoken on the issue of why "from the river to the sea" is genocidal in nature, so I won't be going too in depth on that. My point is more so that those two phrases are equivalently malevolent in nature.

There's also the people who call themselves "pro-Palestine". If we take into consideration what "Palestine" as a term means, we're left with two interpretations.

First, they just use that instead of "Free Palestine", making their use of it still equivalent for wanting the entirety of Israel gone.

Second, they want Palestine to "win" in the war.

Now, since we've established that there isn't actually a country called Palestine right now, they're either rooting for the PA or Hamas to win.

As I recommended before, it'd be fantastic if you could just take time to read up on what pay-for-slay is. As a quick summary, that's exactly what it sounds like. The PA pays people money for killing Israelis/Jews. (That's the very vague version, since this isn't the point of the post.)

Therefore, you can probably imagine what would happen to Israelis if the PA were to take over Israel (G-d forbid).

If, G-d forbid, Hamas were to take over Israel, we'd end up with a series of atrocities akin to the horrors of Oct 7th. How do I know? Hamas leaders have repeatedly promised to repeat Oct 7th again and again and again.

Both the PA and Hamas have killed their own people for suspected collaboration with Israel, in rather cruel ways. So you can probably imagine what'd happen to Israelis in both scenarios.

I have seen very very few people who align themselves with either phrasing of the movement actually calling for two states, or for any viable solution. (And no, a ceasefire that leaves Hamas in power is not a viable solution. We had a ceasefire until the moment they attacked on Oct 7th.)

(I say "very few" as an allowance that some may exist, but in reality I haven't seen any.)

If your solution involves the dissolution of Israel and giving power to either the PA or Hamas, congratulations. You are actively backing a genocidal "solution".

And much like a previous "solution", most of the victims of this proposed genocide would be Jewish.